


Family means being together

by armethaumaturgy



Series: Fate rolled the dice and the outcome was us [2]
Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: 3add, Angst, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Self-cest, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-04-26 08:38:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 35,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4998094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was definitely weird, at least at first. But somehow, they fit together like puzzle pieces.<br/>Lusa hated analogies like these, but he couldn’t really disagree.</p><p> </p><p>A series of one shots about the 2nd job Adds. Follows after the <i>Life at the lab</i> series<br/>Ratings vary per chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fate rolled the dice and the outcome was us (2/2)

**Author's Note:**

> I started shipping this almost purely so I could use the pun 3add. Get it? 3add? Because it's an Add triad?  
> I'll see myself out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s desperate, Mastermind can read it all over his face and it’s also dripping from his voice. Droplets of blood keep hitting the floor. “What’s in it for me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is part two of the two-shot that ties together the LATL and FMBT series'. i'm sorry that i couldn't really post it in any cleaner way, so hopefully you're not all too confused ^^'

Mastermind twists slightly in his chair, looking at the fading purple portal by his wall. Two figures stumble into his lab, dripping blood everywhere. Mastermind scoffs.

One of them appears to be unconscious while the other looks to him with wide, frightened eyes.

“This isn’t our lab…” he mutters quietly, but in the silence it is more than enough to echo. Their eyes lock and Mastermind frowns a little. The other’s eyes are pink and he notices a faint scar on his blood-stained cheek. He moves his sight to the unconscious one, but he’s too slumped over to confirm it.

“Hey, you’re another Add, right?” the newcomer asks.

“’Another’…?” Mastermind quips, rising to his feet. He presses a button on one of the holo-screens to save his work – just in case. “Who are you?”

The slighter man – they seem about the same height, but the unconscious one looks much stronger physically – adjusts the other’s position, casting him a quick concerned look. “Adds…” he mutters. “I’m Esper. This is… Lusa. Please, help him.”

He’s desperate, Mastermind can read it all over his face and it’s also dripping from his voice. Droplets of blood keep hitting the floor. “What’s in it for me?”

Esper’s chest heaves with heavy breaths. He’s trembling. “What do you want?”

Mastermind’s lips stretch into a wide smile. “Kek. You said you’re… Adds? Interesting. Let me study you.”

* * *

Esper clutches Lusa’s hand with both of his, brows drawn together as he watches Lusa’s face.

Mastermind – that was what he introduced himself as – pours alcohol over a washcloth and runs it over the wound on Lusa’s side. The berserker’s unconscious body jerks and it makes Esper clench his teeth and hold the hand even tighter.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispers. He’s not sure if he’s trying to calm down Lusa or reassure himself.

Mastermind sends him a strange look, but keeps cleaning the wound in silence.

Esper wonders why it was that that portal in particular called out to him. None other than the ones to his and Lusa’s timelines ever did that. He looks at Mastermind. Why him? What is so special about him that this timeline called out to him? Without a thought to it, he raises a hand to his chest and starts prying at the edges of the crystal fused into his flesh, like clawing it out would give him all the answers he seeks.

Is there really fate? Is it fate leading him? He’d never believed in things like that, but…

He doesn’t know what to think.

Mastermind calls a drone to take the med kit away as he unrolls a bandage. “Hold him up,” he commands and Esper squeezes Lusa’s hand one more time before sliding his hands underneath his back and, trying to be as gentle as he could possibly be, lifts the sagged body off the table. Mastermind’s deft fingers wrap the bandage tightly over the wound, hiding it from view. When he’s done, Esper softly lowers Lusa again.

* * *

“Now then,” Mastermind says as he straightens up again. “I did my part of the deal. Mind answering some questions now?”

That’s not a question, Esper knows. The tone immediately reminds him of other things phrased as questions that most definitely weren’t questions. Esper’s stomach churns. He nods and stands up from the stool.

He casts a look at Lusa and ruffles his hair before following Mastermind back into the lab. Mastermind seats himself in the giant chair, already pulling up a few holo-screens. There are no other chairs like at Lusa’s place – of course there aren’t, it’s not like Mastermind lives with anyone – so Esper sits on the edge of the worktable, swinging his legs back and forth.

He watches as Mastermind starts up an audio recording. His emotionless face puts Esper off a little bit. Is he one of the… bad Adds? Esper feels so wrong thinking that, because by definition, he’s one of the worst, but the aura around Mastermind is just so off-putting. He feels the need to run away, turn away and run—

“So you said you are an Add?”

Esper shivers despite himself, but nods nonetheless.

Mastermind’s voice is sharp like a blade. “Be vocal. I don’t want to start up a video recording. So the other one is an Add as well?”

“Yeah.” Esper starts picking at the blood caked on his jacket. He feels gross, wants to change his clothes and take a bath. Preferably with Lusa making dinner meanwhile. When was the last time he got what he wanted, though?

“How come you’re,” Mastermind does a weird little gesture with his left hand, “here?”

“Dimensional travel.”

When he refuses to elaborate, Mastermind sends him a frown. “You can travel between dimensions?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

Esper is starting to annoy the other and, if he wasn’t so preoccupied with trying not to think about every single small detail his mind was supplying about all his time travels, he might even care. Like this, he just glares at the wall. “Through many calculations.”

“Answer me properly!” Mastermind hisses and faster than he can blink, Esper is staring down a Dynamo pointed at his face, already crackling with energy.

Esper narrows his eyes at it, prepared to strike back, but then he deflates, breathing out the air he didn’t know he still had in his lungs. He squeezes his eyes closed and reminds himself that this Add had helped Lusa. And this whole fiasco is his fault in the first place, so the least he can do is keep his cool, right?

He brushes the Dynamo to the side with a wave of his hand and pulls his feet up on the table, hugging his knees. He rests his chin on them. “It’s not like I can tell you how my stupid equations work anyway,” he says.

Mastermind’s eyes gaze at him sharply. “How did you and him end up here?”

“I found Lusa’s timeline on accident. But he was really nice, so I stayed. And then he wanted to see the past and everything went to shit.” Esper’s glossy eyes stare at the ground, at the polished surface that reflects the overhead lights. “Coming here was also a mistake. Something about your timeline called out to me, though.”

“‘Called out’?”

Esper forces down the urge to pry at the crystal stuck in his chest again. “Mmhm. It’s a side effect of time travel.”

Esper glances at the door and bites his bottom lip. “Look, I’ll tell you more later,” he says, jumping off the table. “I need to check up on Lusa.”

“It’s been only six minutes,” Mastermind calls after him, clicking his tongue in annoyance.

Esper either doesn’t hear him or simply ignores him.


	2. Disentangling the knots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Lusa finally awakens, it's like everything takes an immediate turn. Esper's attitude changes immensely; he actually starts cooperating and Mastermind actually learns a fair bit about them, alongside the general story of how they met.
> 
> Though, he's not sure whether that small victory is good enough compensation for… Well, Lusa.

Mastermind is used to the silence only broken by the hum and whirs of his electronics and, occasionally, his own voice. Solitude is something he'd grown accustomed to over his life.

And now, when he is housing two people - nevermind the fact that they're both basically him - it feels very weird.

He wouldn't really say 'bad', but definitely weird.

It is unusual to go to the kitchen and see someone already there, making coffee. Esper consumes almost as much caffeine as Mastermind does, just so he can stay up by Lusa's side.

Whenever Mastermind went to peek into the room, Esper was always there, either holding the other's hand or passed out, leaning halfway against the wall.

This weird routine continues for almost a week; Esper almost doesn't talk to him, and Mastermind knows the time traveler is wary of him. Though it shouldn't bother him in the slightest, the way Esper acts almost protectively to Lusa makes something ache deep in his chest.

He douses that feeling and goes back to work on repairing Apocalypse's broken targeting system. He calibrates it meticulously, until he's satisfied when all the attacks hit the target spot on.

He powers Apocalypse down and checks over the data stream logged on his screens. Sometime during that, he notices Esper hovering about by the doorway.

"What is it?" he asks, but keeps his eyes trained to the screen. His periphery is more than enough to see Esper walk in anyway.

"I was hungry," Esper says, stopping by the table. His eyes curiously row over Apocalypse. "What is this?"

Mastermind looks momentarily to see him pointing at the cube. "That's Apocalypse."

The data looks fine, so he closes it and leans back in his seat.

Esper keeps looking at the cube for a moment longer. "It reminds me of a cat," he says finally, nodding his head a few times before leaving the lab again.

Mastermind is left slightly stumped. Esper hadn't complained about being hungry until now. Also, he has no idea how the cube of devastation reminds him of a cat.

* * *

When Lusa finally awakens, it's like everything takes an immediate turn. Esper's attitude changes immensely; he actually starts cooperating and Mastermind actually learns a fair bit about them, alongside the general story of how they met.

Though, he's not sure whether that small victory is good enough compensation for… Well, Lusa.

The brawler is obnoxious, loud, and extremely nosy. His quick temperament makes it nigh impossible to talk to him - he doesn't understand how Esper manages it.

And the two seem to share opinions, at least most of the time. Though Esper is still wary of him, he does seem to try and open up - Mastermind doesn't understand why he's doing that. What good will it do any of them? And Lusa, following his example, also tries to be friendly. Though his version of 'friendliness' is defined by sparring matches and crude humor.

He hasn't agreed to a single spar yet, much rather watching the two's matches. Like right now, when he's sitting outside on a bench with an analysis drone looking at them preparing. He has to admit he was surprised by their strengths the first time (and, this he won't admit, but it still surprises him every time).

Lusa's fighting style consists of using brute strength and amplifying it via his Dynamos and the plasma armor. The armor interested Mastermind the most, and he even managed to convince Lusa to let him test the velocity and force of his punches. The scales weren't enough to give clear results, however.

Esper prefers to use his portals to divert the incoming attacks, teleport himself and the enemies and then he strikes back, using the force of reality to deal devastating blows. He refuses to explain how any if it works, though. It irks Mastermind like nothing else.

Esper and Lusa face each other, a fair distance away. Lusa activates his armor and charges for the time traveler. Mastermind thinks he saw them nodding to each other, but since he's so far away, he could've just imagined it.

Lusa opens with a punch that Esper dodges easily, the two falling into tandem of attacking and dodging. No skills, they agreed that morning, so this was just their base attacks.

Lusa gathers energy at the tips of his Dynamos and kicks it forth with a grunt. Esper creates a rift to negate it and teleports behind the other to start a combo of electrifying attacks. Lusa's armor takes the blows before he punches the time traveler away, knocking the wind out of him. Esper picks himself up quickly, sending a few gravity spheres at the brawler.

At this point, Mastermind stops paying much attention in favor of checking the drone. The analysis is being projected to his holo-screens and he rows the data. He stands up and goes back inside, the drone following him with its quiet hum.

Lusa and Esper stop for a moment, looking after him and catching their breath.

"Didn't he want to watch?" Esper mutters.

Lusa shrugs. "I mean if he doesn't want to, we can stop."

Esper nods with a faint affirmative sound, feet touching the ground again. His black scleras slowly fade back to white as the effects of the portals wash away. "He's… interesting," he says.

"Interesting? If you mean insufferable at times and absolutely horrendous at human interactions, you're right." Lusa scoffs, remembering exactly with how much tact the inventor asked him to test his punches. That is to say, absolutely none. Only Esper convinced him to agree.

Esper's face softens slightly and he heads back inside. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but all of us are horrendous at human interactions."

Behind him, Lusa mumbles something along the lines of 'may be so', but it's mostly incoherent.

"You should try to get along with him, since we're staying here and all…"

"What? Why are we staying?!"

Esper almost, almost flinches. "I'm not taking you through time and space again," he says with steel resolve. He's glad Lusa can't see his face, because he's almost sure he isn't able to hold back his grimace. "I'll… I'll come get all your - our - stuff, but… Sorry, I'm not risking your life again."


	3. Fate rolled the dice and the outcome was us (2/2)

They all had their signature smiles. It didn't take long to learn them, but it did take some time to see the different kinds.

It was a long road, but a very fruitful one, Esper thinks.

Lusa grins often. It's mostly self-satisfied grins that speak volumes of what he just accomplished. When he finishes an upgrade, or when he handles a few dozen bandits on his own, or when he teases the other two. He's the one whose lips are curled up most often.

But there are other smiles, smiles he only ever lets the other two see. Like that small quirk when his eyes are softly narrowed with a content shine to them. Esper likes that one, likes it a lot.

He doesn't get to see it often, and if he ever does, it's only ever for a few seconds. Lusa only smiles like that when he watches them and he's sure they aren't watching him back in turn. Esper ordered his Dynamo to take a picture one time. He still has it, stored in a special folder. He wanted to make it his desktop wallpaper, but he figured Lusa wouldn't much like that. He likes looking at it from time to time.

He also smiles a soft smile while shaking his head, this mostly at Esper. It's exhilarating and would be even more so if he didn't know it was a smile Lusa only used when he screwed up. He never smiled like that at Mastermind, because Mastermind didn't screw up.

Like that time when he accidentally burned the breakfast (Lusa didn't allow him to touch the stove after that. He didn't burn anything too badly! Just singed the wall, is all), he can still remember the smile and the way it felt like Lusa was looking down on him. He decided he didn't like that one smile. It's good he doesn't see that one often.

He also doesn't count the bloodlust-filled smiles he sees through fights. They don't count. They aren't for him. They _won't_ be for him. Hopefully.

Mastermind smiles when he's rested. When his body isn't fueled only by uncountable amounts of coffee, he will often unconsciously smile when Esper hangs himself all over his chest. It's a gentle smile, affectionate and soft, and often accompanied by a hand that will stroke through Esper's hair, scratching at his scalp almost like he is a kitten.

It's the type of smiles Esper wants plastered on Mastermind's face all the time. He has a photo of this smile as well, in the same folder. It was very worth the scolding he'd received when Mastermind found out.

When they work together, Esper likes to watch other two. No matter how much it hurts to admit, it's mostly Mastermind and Lusa working together while he only watches. His speciality is time travel and El crystal enhancements, and that doesn't much help them, and it hurts sometimes, but Esper doesn't mind (mostly), because he gets to look at them as they work things out together.

He had noticed that Mastermind would smile differently sometimes. When Lusa would show him something related to physical armor, something Mastermind hadn't considered, Mastermind would let out a small sighed laugh, just an exhale without sound and his lips would curl up the tiniest bit and he'd scoot over to hear Lusa out.

Esper sometimes wondered if Mastermind would do the same for him if he showed him some of his research. Probably not. He never tried.

Maybe he should. He knocks on the door to Mastermind's room and opens it before even giving the other a chance to answer. "Hey, Mastermind?"

He peeks inside to see Mastermind sprawled across his seat, and Lusa in a chair next to him. They're busily poring over a data stream on the screens.

They both turn to face him and he feels like falling through the earth. "Uh, nevermind. I'll leave you to it," he mumbles. It can wait. It isn't anything important, after all, just his stupid sense of selfishness begging to be satisfied. It doesn't matter.

He is closing the door again when Mastermind calls after him. "Esper, wait!" His heart leaps in his chest and he freezes, gazing inside through the slit of the doorway. "You could help us, we can't work this out."

Lusa scoots over and lets Esper seat himself on one of his knees (the boy is so light he doesn't mind in the least). He swings his legs back and forth as his eyes scan through the data while Mastermind explains the bug. He's not even done when Esper points at the data.

"There," he says, pointing at a certain command. "That's wrong. It can't have a negative value or it'll break the whole calculation chain."

They can both see the lightbulb switching on above Mastermind's head as he furiously retypes that passage. No one says anything else, but Lusa drapes a hand across Esper's back.

In the flickering light of the screen, Esper's wide smile, full of teeth and uncontained satisfaction, is more than obvious. Lusa orders a Dynamo to take a photo.


	4. Glass walls, bloody cracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are to help me today,” he says out of the blue.  
> Esper raises an eyebrow, pulling his mug away from his face to ask, “What with?”  
> “Research. I want to study you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i havent updated my ao3 in half a year b ye,,

Esper is enjoying the pleasant calm of the morning, grasping a mug of still steaming coffee and staring out of the window at the streets of Velder, busied even this soon in the morning. The noise of the marketplace is just far away not to bother him and be a pleasant white noise. The birds are singing their songs heedlessly, adding beauty to the cacophony of muffled voices.

There is something serene about the moment. If Esper overlooks the fact that this is not his timeline — or Lusa’s, for the matter — he feels almost calm. Returning back to his timeline is a wistful dream now. He’d prefer returning to Lusa’s place, returning back to the admittedly good life, but he won’t do it alone, and he most certainly won’t drag Lusa through time and space again, not after the disaster that happened last time.

He’s unsure whether he wants to be left alone or whether he’s grateful when Mastermind shows up in the conjoined kitchen/living room and pulls him away from the thoughts he didn’t even noticed spiraling out of control already.

“Morning,” he greets, getting a nod in return. Mastermind looks pensive, watching him as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“You are to help me today,” he says out of the blue.

Esper raises an eyebrow, pulling his mug away from his face to ask, “What with?”

“Research. I want to study you.”

Shrugging to himself, Esper chugs down the rest of his coffee, shuddering as the hot liquid passes down his esophagus. He had promised after all, so he can’t just say ‘no’. The ceramic clinks against the sink as he puts the empty mug away and follows after Mastermind.

The inventor’s lab is clean and neat, nowhere near the utter mess that both his and Lusa’s were (mostly anyway, Lusa cleaned from time to time). A giant screen takes up the length of one of the walls, projected perfectly on the white background. A moving chair sits in front of it, its wheels squeaking along the floor as Mastermind takes a seat. A keyboard gets projected onto the long, empty table, Mastermind’s fingers skidding along it to log into the system.

The rest of the room is equally clean; there is a pair of cabinets by one of the walls, presumably filled with components, and he guesses the lettered shelf next to them is filled with Mastermind’s blueprints. A sink is stationed next to them, for the messier, hands-on experiments.

“Sit down,” Mastermind says, not taking his eyes off the screen. Esper blinks minutely; he must mean to sit on the table in the relative middle of the room. It, too, is pristine and has a polished surface that he hops onto.

He isn’t sure what Mastermind wants help with, what he wants to research. He’d asked him all kinds of questions when he’d finally agreed to cooperate (after he was sure Lusa was okay), about time and space travel, about timelines, about the existence of alternates; anything the scientist deemed worth knowing. It doesn’t look like that will be the case this time, since Mastermind stands up from his spot and goes over to the cabinets to grab something.

Esper’s face sets in a grim frown when he sees the syringe and array of test-tubes. “What are those for?” he asks, despite already knowing the answer.

“I’m going to take your blood and analyze it,” Mastermind answers, already preparing the syringe. “Jacket off,” he orders.

“At least buy me dinner first,” Esper jests, but shrugs his jacket off nonetheless, presenting his bare upper arms, gloves still in place. At Mastermind’s unimpressed stare he rolls one of the gloves down and shows him his arm. He’s not sure if his joke went unnoticed or ignored.

The needle pierces his skin and he forces down an uncomfortable hiss as Mastermind starts to draw up the blood. They both watch the thick, black liquid slowly fill up the syringe with almost matching looks of aversion.

One, then two test-tubes get filled and put away, and Esper starts feel his stomach churning at the sight of the needle re-piercing his skin.

“How much do you need?” he asks, twisting his head away and staring at the holo-screen instead. There is almost nothing on it so he doesn’t even have any proper distraction.

The needle leaves again. His arm is starting to ache faintly.

“Enough for a bunch of tests,” Mastermind answers, sounding absentminded as he pours the blood into a test-tube. “I’d rather take more now than have to do this again. Your blood is so… _vile_ ,” he says with an audible scoff.

Esper flinches, though he blames that on the fact that Mastermind had pierced him with the needle again and he wasn’t expecting it. He goes to chuckle, but Mastermind keeps talking, to his absolute horror.

“It’s almost like a monster’s.”

It is an offhand comment as he pulls the needle out again and goes over to his table, obviously finished, but Esper feels like he wants to puke.

“But I guess you kind of are one, right? With all the taint in your body,  there is no way you are still human. It’s revolting, but still fascinating.”

Mastermind leaves the filled vials on the table and goes to wash the syringe and throw away the soiled needle. He expects another one of Esper’s humorous quips or maybe an insult thrown at him, but Esper is already leaving the lab, closing the door with a bit more force than is absolutely necessary.

Mastermind goes right to the research, pulling out his microscope and another syringe. First, he wants to compare his own and Esper’s blood. And then Esper’s and demons’ blood. And then he will get Lusa’s and compare that, when the berserker returns from wherever the El he had disappeared to earlier. He doesn’t really care, as long as he isn’t interrupting Mastermind’s research.

* * *

There are only two things Esper is keeping an eye out for; for what Lusa is doing and to make sure neither of his counterparts hears his weeping.

Tears, dark and oily and disgusting, run down his cheeks in rivulets, falling from his chin in big drops and staining his top — he didn’t even realize he’d forgotten his jacket in Mastermind’s lab. He chokes on a sob and wipes at his eyes furiously with the back of his hand.

He only moves from his spot, hiding in the corner of his bed, when he hears the shower turning off. Standing up, he takes a shaky breath to try and stop the tears from flowing.

Slowly, Esper makes his way to Lusa’s room and lets himself in quietly.

Lusa makes a tiny, startled sound, turning around as he’s pulling on a clean shirt. His confused look immediately changes into a concerned one when he sees the time traveler.

“Esper, what’s wrong?” he asks, feeling a surge of panic well up from his chest when he sees the tear streaks running down the other’s reddened cheeks.

Almost on instinct, he encircles the lankier boy with his arms, only tightening his hold when Esper does nothing to protest. In fact, he simply goes limp and lets Lusa pull him against his chest. He doesn’t even realize he’s shaking, but he is, and only stops once Lusa’s hand starts rubbing tiny, soothing circles onto his back.

He hiccups a little, pulling away, but Lusa doesn’t let him go, instead pulling him backwards onto the bed and only then freeing him. Esper wipes at his eyes again, succeeding in little more than getting the oily liquid all over his face.

“Talk to me,” Lusa requests softly, moving one hand up to brush the fringe out of Esper’s face. “What happened?”

Breathing shakily, Esper clings to Lusa, realizing just how pathetic he must look. There’s a waver in his voice as he tries to make himself sound normal. “Sorry, I’m just…”

“It’s okay, something must’ve happened, right?”

A shaky nod is all Esper manages, and even that is hesitant, unsure. He shouldn’t be this affected by a few words. Especially since he’d heard those few words innumerable times.

He’d thought he’d gotten used to them, he’d thought they didn’t phase him anymore. He’d even believed them once, for El’s sake!

And then… And then Lusa had undermined that belief, made him believe those words weren’t true.

He doesn’t understand why they’d hurt so much, then. Was it because he hadn’t heard them in a long time? Or maybe it was because Mastermind is — technically — Lusa too? Was it because it was _their_ voice uttering the words?

It’s almost laughable how much he wants Lusa to dispute the words again, to squash the rising panic in Esper’s chest, bubbling up from his gut like bile.

“Lusa,” he mutters, and the single word sounds more pathetic than anything he’d ever said in his life. He winces. “Am I a monster?”

There’s a split second where pure rage crosses Lusa’s features — _Why is Esper asking this? What made him think like this?!_ — before he tugs Esper closer, unheeding of his confused yelp.

“You’re still not,” he whispers, and it prompts a fresh wave of tears from Esper, accompanied by hiccuped sobs. Lusa holds the shaking boy as close as he can. They stay like that until Esper’s crying subsides and the time traveler just stays sagged against him.

“Tired?” Lusa asks, and Esper would never admit out loud how much calmer and warmer the softness of the berserker makes him feel. The pure concern and care; they make his stomach do flips that aren’t uncomfortable for once.

He hums a ‘mmhm,’ and no later is Lusa tugging them both sideways so they’re laying on the soft mattress.

“Let’s sleep it off,” Lusa suggests, “You can tell me what made you think like that tomorrow, if you want.”

“Masi…”

“Hm?”

Esper squirms. “Masi,” he repeats, just a tad bit louder. “He took my blood. Uhh, commented on it…”

“I see,” is Lusa’s reply, but it’s flatlined and lacking any intonation. It would seem he needs to have a talk with the scientist, then. But that is for another day. “Forget about him for now, go to sleep. Your head is gonna hurt otherwise.”

Esper hums again, deciding not to say that his head had been hurting for a while now, a side effect of all the (pathetic, his mind reminds him) crying.

“Will you be here in the morning?” he asks, tentatively tangling his legs around Lusa’s.

“Of course, if you want me to.”

“Please.”


	5. A new family member

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He’s a cat.”
> 
> Mastermind glances from Esper to the thing, then back to Esper, back to the thing, and finally back to Esper. “Excuse me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by [coial](http://coial.tumblr.com/) on tumblr:  
>  _"Esper brings home a giant mutated cat he found that has like 3 eyes, horns and spits acid or something along those weird lines. He found it in one of the more weird time/space dimensions. He tries to convince Lusa and Mastermind that it would be a great addition to the family and he's super well behaved and just ignore him currently melting the sofa as he hisses acid onto it he's fine he promises."_
> 
> Feel free to request right [here](http://onthespot.co.vu/ask)! ^^

“Hey, Mastermind!”

Mastermind watches the progress bar of Apocalypse’s update, spinning idly in his chair. He’s contemplating whether he should go get another cup of coffee (or two) or whether he should finally go to bed. Lusa’s voice, faint as it is, catches his attention. He glances at the bar - 72% - and pushes himself up.

He’ll go get the coffee and see what Lusa wanted. He patted the mechanic cube whirring quietly on his way and headed down the hallway to the lounge.

“What did you want, Lus-”

Mastermind stops in the doorway, blinking in silence. He really, _really_ needs that coffee, it seems.

“Hey, Mastermind!” Esper greets, smiling widely from behind Lusa. He must’ve just returned from another trip through time and space. That was probably why Lusa called him. But Mastermind’s attention slid off his counterparts and instead focused behind them, at the lump of… something sitting by the sofa.

It’s big, bigger than him, if only by a little, pitch black, and there seem to be numerous protrusions on its head. When he looks closer, those turn out to be a pair of ears and a pair of horns. He frowns. The thing turns to face him and he automatically recoils, startled by a trio of luminuous yellow eyes.

“What is a demon doing in our lounge?” he questions, turning back to Esper and Lusa. Esper is still smiling, a look of utter joy spread across his pale features. Lusa is shaking his head, frowning at the thing equally as hard as Mastermind is.

“It’s not a demon!” Esper protests, lips turning down in a pout. “And it’s not an it, either! He’s a cat.”

Mastermind glances from Esper to the thing, then back to Esper, back to the thing, and finally back to Esper. “Excuse me?”

“A cat!” Esper repeats, exasperated. “I found him! He was really lonely, so I took him along. Can we keep him? Please?”

Mastermind looks at Esper incredulously and turns to the thing again. It does have a vague shape of a cat, with a waving, slim tail and ears, it even has a small nose just like an actual cat. But the pitch black fur with slight purple undertone and the horns offset it a little. Just a little. And the extra eye. Just a little.

“Esper, we can’t keep a demon as a pet!” Mastermind says finally.

Esper pouts at him, making his usual puppy eyes. Why did they work every time? “Come on, why not? Mr. Sparkle is good!”

Mastermind massages the bridge of his nose. “I- Mr. Sparkle? What?”

“That’s what I call him! Mr. Sparkle,” Esper nods to himself a few times, looking especially proud.

Lusa looks as much in disbelief as Mastermind feels. “Why?”

“Because! Look, his fur sparkles in light!” To demonstrate, Esper embraces the thing and starts petting its side. A low, loud rumbling sound echoes in the room and the demon’s eyes close. True to his words, the fur does indeed sparkle faintly as it moves.

“It’s still a demon!”

Esper turns back while the demon cat pounces atop the sofa and curls up into a ball, still purring. “He’s super duper well behaved! Please! Let’s keep him!” he says, and the puppy eyes never let up.

Mastermind and Lusa exchange a loot after watching a trail of spittle roll down the demon’s mouth. It bites into the couch and leaves behind a faint smokey trail. The acidic spit is melting right through the cushions. Lusa shrugs faintly.

“I mean, look how happy he is,” he says, gesturing to Esper’s joyous smile and shrugging again.

Mastermind heaves a long sigh. “Whatever,” he says finally. “But if that thing— Mr. Sparkle… does something to my research, I’ll kill it.” There’s no real bite to his words, though. He couldn’t bring himself to really hurt the demon cat, not when Esper laughed and embraced the two of them happily, repeating ‘thanks, thanks’ over and over.

He looks at the cat again. Its eyes are watching them and its tongue is slightly poking out, a bright pink. Honestly, it isn’t so bad. It’s even kind of… cute.

Really, that’s its single saving grace when Mastermind finds a stack of his research notes eaten through by acid.

 


	6. Take the goddamn helping hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s fine. He’s just oversensitive,” he says, turning from the screen to the door, where Lusa stands, or, more accurately, leans against the doorframe.

The atmosphere had been strangely tense that morning, or maybe Esper had just imagined it. Though, he had been seeing things lately.

Not hallucinations, just small things that weren’t there. Probably.

Lusa doesn’t seem to be uncomfortable at all; he’s propped against the counter, his night shirt falling off one of his shoulders as he sips the coffee in his kitty-eared mug. His hair is tousled and not yet styled, and for a moment, Esper is just a little envious of such a tranquil feeling.

He shakes those feelings off easily, though. He’s glad Lusa is happy, he really is. He just wishes the same could be said about Masi.

The scientist just seems so on edge, like he would snap at the slightest prompt. Oh, and snap he does. Esper can’t count the times he’d been yelled at for trying to help with the other’s research.

And not even for trying to help; Mastermind found any - any - reason to yell at him for. It had been understandable at first, even amusing, but as the time went on and the inventor didn’t stop even after a full week, it had become more than just a little annoying and tiring.

Esper started avoiding Masi whenever possible, just so he could save the little peace and quiet their home had.

He wondered why it was just him that the scientist yelled at, since Lusa never seemed to be the target for those outbursts. Again, he’s a little envious.

Though, he supposes he must’ve done something to deserve Masi’s wrath. For the love of El lady, he can’t remember what, however.

“You still thinking about Masi?” Lusa asks, breaking him out of the reverie. He must’ve been spacing off for a good while if Lusa noticed.

“Mhm,” he hums. No point in denying, there’s nothing good to gain from it. Not right now.

Lusa frowns. “He’s gonna break you at this pace.”

Esper laughs, muffled by the coffee. “I can’t be broken.” Not any more than I already am, anyway. He keeps the last part to himself, though.

Lusa finishes the last of his coffee, setting the mug down into the sink with a soft clang. He pats Esper’s shoulder on his way, and only stops to say a few more words.

“If you’re not broken, don’t try to fix yourself, Esper.”

* * *

 

Mastermind’s yelling again.

Esper isn’t even sure about what at this point. He knows he started going off about how Esper isn’t ever productive, but then it somehow evolved into a plethora of other things, none of which Esper really wanted to listen to, so he had tuned out.

All he had wanted was to see if he wanted help.

He stares at the door over the other’s shoulder, not really focusing on it but rather at the empty air in front of it.

He lets Masi go on for a little longer, just so he could get it all off his chest.

“I’m just so tired. Isn’t it enough already?” he mutters then, eyes still trained to the open door as if it were holding the deepest secrets of the universe.

Masi looks stunned for a moment, then frowns at him fiercely. "This is exactly it!” he growls. “You’re always like this! Can’t you take anything seriously? You’re so useless!”

Esper flinches before he can compose himself, staring back at the inventor with a wide-eyed, unbelieving look. He is able to force down the pain in favor of showing his rage.

“So are you!” he strikes back, jabbing at Masi’s chest with his finger. He hits perfectly between two ribs and enjoys the pain flashing momentarily across the other’s face. “What gives you the right to do this, huh?! Just go back to your stupid lab and work on your stupid drones!”

He stomps off before the other can retort, going to his own lab and making sure to lock the door in case the scientist might not take the hint.

Once he’s inside, the anger he had felt ebbs away and he’s left with an empty feeling spreading inside his chest and sobs bubbling up from his throat.

He slides down to his knees, and then falls over, completely numb to the pain in his shoulder from the impact. He’s powerless to stop himself from crying.

He truly might be useless.

* * *

 

“You’ve hurt him.”

Mastermind groans, rolling his eyes even though be knows that Lusa can’t see them. Great, exactly what he needed, a fucking talk.

“He’s fine. He’s just oversensitive,” he says, turning from the screen to the door, where Lusa stands, or, more accurately, leans against the doorframe.

The berserker’s face is set into a grim look, his arms folded on his chest. “The fact you can say that with a straight face baffles me.”

It is very much irritating to be reprimanded by someone like him - since it’s almost always the other way around - and Mastermind can’t hide his annoyance. “You’re baffled by a lot.”

Lusa pushes himself off the frame and stalks towards him, expression dark. The scientist ponders if he had gone too far this time. With just a few long strides, Lusa stands over him.

Hands grip his shoulders and pull him up so they are both standing, staring face to face. The hands stay, holding him in place. In addiction, Lusa’s dynamos point at his face, floating dangerously close. Mastermind considers calling his, but knows he wouldn’t have the time.

“You know what baffles me?” Lusa inquires, not breaking eye contact once. “How you think you’re so much better. How you think you can do and say whatever you want, and it won’t have consequences. How you think we aren’t humans or something. How you think we don’t have feelings that you can hurt.” He stares at the other intently, making sure he doesn’t look away. His fingers dig into his shoulders through the fabric of his coat and shirt.

Of course Mastermind is watching. Lusa’s angry expression is a point of curiosity, and his words sound a bit cleverer than usual, though no less annoying. His infatuation with Esper’s wellbeing is also remarkable. And, again, annoying.

“Newsflash: we fucking do. And you’ve hurt Esper’s. So now, you’re gonna fix it, or I’m going to hurt more than just your feelings in return.”

* * *

 

He knocks on Esper’s door.

The response is immediate and sounds angry. “Go away.”

He knocks again.

“Go away!”

Mastermind grits his teeth and tries the doorhandle. It’s locked, unsurprisingly. He sighs to himself and steels his resolve. Just get through this to get Lusa out of his skin.

“It’s me,” he calls out. “I’ve come to apologize.”

Esper doesn’t miss a beat. “You came because Lusa sent you!”

He sighs again. Damn his other self for being so observant. He just wanted to do this, give a few empty lies and then go back to his research. No such luck.

“Yes, that’s right. You are both… interfering with my research.”

“Alright, I won’t try to help anymore,” Esper says. His voice is surprisingly clear, like he’s sitting by the door. “That what you want?”

“Yes- no-” Mastermind growls, frustrated. “I don’t need help! I’ve never had help!”

There’s a moment of silence. Then something shuffles and silence again. What is Esper doing?

“You can have it now, thought.”

The words, soft and quiet, stun him and he stares incredulously at the locked door. There’s an insistent feeling somewhere in his chest, but he doesn’t know what it is. Annoyed at it, he decides to look it up later.

Without giving it much thought, he replies, “I don’t know what to do with it.”

The lock clicks and the door opens a sliver to reveal one of Esper’s eyes peeking through. He takes one look at the scientist and all the traces of anger melt from his expression.

With a sad mumble, he beckons the other inside. “Come here.”

Unsure, Mastermind steps forward and Esper wraps his lanky arms around his torso. To his credit, it’s only slightly uncomfortable when Esper rests his chin on his shoulder. The warm feeling is back.

“I used to think like that, you know,” Esper mumbles. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. We’re here for you, both me and Lusa. And… though you won’t say, we know you’re here for us, too. You just have to not think so much all the time. Not everything can be solved by equations and formulas, you know.”

He doesn’t have an answer to that, doesn’t think there is one. Instead, he winds his own arms around the other.

“Wow, that was a lot sappier than I expected.” Mastermind’s eyes flicker to the side, where he just notices Lusa sitting, cross-legged. The berserker has been there the whole time?!

Mastermind immediately pulls away, setting his face into a frown. Seeing this, Lusa laughs and picks himself up. He fixes the scientist with a look that simply screams ‘you’re lucky you listened’.

“Oh no, don’t stop,” he drawls, lips tugging into a lopsided smirk. “In fact, I was just thinking of joining.”


	7. Lilies the colour of my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s like he’s home, truly home. It’s like the room, and the atmosphere itself, wraps its soft tendrils around him and takes him somewhere far, far away.

There is always a vase full of blooming lilies sitting on the counter in the kitchen.

It’s a small vase, nothing interesting, and it’s starting to develop faint sedimentary lines from the water. The lilies are what catches the eye, each of them purely white, save for the occasional green in their centers. They are arranged to be as close as they can be, precisely cut to the same height so none stick out.

No matter the time of year, they are, without fail, there. Even in the freezing throes of winter, Mastermind will find a way to get them.

Their smell permeates the room, hangs in the air softly, like it was a real meadow instead of an almost clinically clean room. It fits the space, though, somehow binds it together, makes it feel warmer and more welcoming.

White lilies were mother’s favourite.

She always had them in a vase sitting on the kitchen windowsill and the whole house, small as it had been, always smelled of them. It’s a smell that reminds him of home, and the kitchen is the only room where Mastermind allows himself to relax fully. It’s the one sentimentality of the lost past he allows himself.

When the tantalizing aroma of fresh coffee mingles with the lilies and he opens the window to let in some of the Velder’s warm sun, it almost doesn’t feel like he had traveled in time at all.

It’s like he’s home, truly home. It’s like the room, and the atmosphere itself, wraps its soft tendrils around him and takes him somewhere far, far away.

Ever since Lusa and Esper basically moved in, the vase had been gone. Lusa had taken it from its spot and gave it a thorough cleaning.

He and Esper had both given him matching knowing looks, but there was also something in them that ground on Mastermind’s nerves. He’s still not sure if it had been pity, but he knows he doesn’t want to see it ever again.

The vase had been put away. In its place, the two had gotten a significantly larger one, with a golden engraved ornament on its outer side. It didn’t fit in the kitchen one bit, but somehow, Mastermind had gotten used to it.

They all started putting lilies into it, but not just white ones. The black ones that Esper liked so much smelled a lot stronger, and Mastermind could tell the time traveler had gotten new ones just by walking through the hallway. The pink ones that Lusa always got were a nice addition to the white surface of the counter, and they looked especially nice against the setting sun.

Now with the stronger smell permeating almost the whole building, there is a newfound sense of home in it. Then again, it might not be the smell, or even the flowers, but rather the whole atmosphere.

Though he’s not the one to admit it easily, there’s something fundamentaly different now. Something lighter, something warmer.

It’s the ring of Lusa’s laughter in the morning when he points at Mastermind’s mussed-up, not-yet-combed hair.  
It’s Esper popping in through a portal, asking if he doesn’t have some spare part he needs.  
It’s the smell of coffee first thing in the morning because Esper couldn’t sleep and made it early.  
It’s Lusa preparing dinner because all of them have been living off of beef jerky and chocolate for a week.  
It’s Esper helping him with calculations when he’s stuck.  
It’s Lusa yelling at him at five AM to go to bed.  
It’s the blanket he finds draped over his shoulders when he falls asleep in his chair.  
It’s the papers and tools left all over the building and it’s the fact that they don’t bother him anymore.  
It’s the three of them.

But he likes to pretend the only thing that’s changed is the vase and the flowers sitting inside it.


	8. System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the pain strikes, they know exactly what to do, whom to go to.

They have a weird support system that, by all means, shouldn't work at all, but somehow does anyway. When the pain strikes, they know exactly what to do, whom to go to.

Lusa is the one to ground. His embrace is warm and tight and reminds the others that he's real. He's the one to go to if things start slipping, if nothing seems real. He doesn't mind sitting around for hours just hugging, being a shoulder to cry on.

He'll let Esper cry and scream into his shoulder and he'll hold him tight enough to almost bruise him, because he knows Esper needs just that, needs a solid proof they're real and there. If that proof happens to be a bit of pain, then Esper will deal with faint, green spots around his body. He never mentions them.

He'll let Mastermind mumble his nonsensical words and hold him close, but not as tightly. Mastermind needs to know they're alive, that it isn't just another illusion brought to life by his sleep-deprived mind. If hearing Lusa's heartbeat is what he needs, Lusa will gladly let him listen to it all night long.

Lusa is like a rock, ready to yank them back to their feet when it feels like they'd floated too far.

Mastermind is the one to calm them. He expresses better with words, better than either of the others. He's the one to go to when they need to be reassured. He doesn't mind spinning his words, over and over, even if there is research to be done.

He'll calm Lusa every time his senses start wavering, every time he goes into that weird, scary trance where he only thinks of destroying everything. Mastermind will remind him of himself, will talk all about how that isn't really Lusa, just the insanity crying out. He'll voice the reason, but not as a command, never like that.

He'll reassure Esper each time he fails on his quest, will let him know that even if he didn't succeed, they're still here for him. He'll reassure Esper that this really is his timeline, their timeline, they're home. He'll talk all about how the doubts are just lack of sleep and confusion if the travels. He'll voice the truth, but never overwhelmingly, never like that.

Mastermind is just like a pair of wings, ready to pull them up from where they'd fallen deep down.

Esper is the one who understands the most. On his neverending search for mother, he had, somewhere along the way, found what he had searched for. Somehow, he had become what he'd sought so much, just the touch he had always wished for.

He'll hold Lusa and press kisses to his unruly hair, touch so soft it's almost like it's not even there. Lusa needs to be reminded that not everything needs to rough, hard, fast. He needs to feel the soft gestures that spoke volumes more of love than any words ever could.

He'll sit around Mastermind's room and shower him in heartfelt praises, just loud enough for Mastermind to hear. Mastermind needs to be reminded that someone cares about all the hard work he puts out of himself. He needs to feel the sense that someone is proud of him.

Esper is like the warm home they return to, battered and beaten, and the love that permeates from it, ready to push them forward towards the future.

Really, it's an unlogical system that doesn't make sense and shouldn't even work in the first place, but it does, it does, and that's enough.

It's more than enough.


	9. Bug

"Lusa? Lusa!" Mastermind calls out, barging into his counterpart's room. "Have you seen Apocalypse?"

Lusa turns from his Dynamos, screwdriver in hand, and shrugs at Mastermind. "Nope. I've been here since morning."

Mastermind frowns and leaves Lusa to work in peace as he paces down the corridor. Where could've the cube gone? He is sure it was by his bed last night.

He walks past the lounge and hears quiet laughter coming from inside. He peeks in and is startled to find exactly what he'd been looking for.

Apocalypse sits on the sofa, or, more specifically, in Esper's lap as the time traveler pets the cube's pointy ears. Esper laughs quietly whenever the weapon lets out a quiet whirr, strangely like a cat's purr. He hasn't programmed that in, had he?

He keeps watching in silence, as Esper keeps rubbing the cube, behind its ears and over the top and back, just like he would a living kitten. The sight is strange and surprisingly heartwarming.

Especially when he pays attention to Esper's face. The way his lips curl up in the faintest of smiles and the way his eyes crinkle at the corners cutely. Mastermind can feel a smile worming its way onto his face, as well.

"Ah, Mastermind," Esper says, breaking him out of his reverie. "Are you looking for Apo?"

"Yeah. What're you doing?"

Esper gives him one of his wide, innocent smiles. "We're playing. Sometimes, Apo wants to play and since you never do, it comes to me," Esper explains, like it was the most normal thing ever.

He had definitely not programmed anything like that in. He's slightly taken aback, but when Apocalypse lets out another whirr and Esper starts petting it again, smiling so warmly at it, he thinks that it's okay. He hasn't had any problems with it in battle, so he thinks he doesn't mind leaving that bug inside.

Not when he gets to see Esper with a smile like that.


	10. Sometimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I couldn’t sleep,” Esper would reply, every time, without fail.
> 
> “You didn’t even try, did you?” Mastermind would ask, already knowing the answer.

Sometimes, the door to the balcony would be open a tiny slit in the middle of the night, and Mastermind would walk past it on his way to get another coffee (if he couldn’t sleep, he might as well make himself useful and get things done, right?). He’d grab his coffee and, with the steaming mug in hand, would open the door a little more and slip outside.

The night air would be refreshing, if a little chilly, and it’d make him hold the mug a little closer.

“Esper, what’re you doing here?” he’d ask every time, capturing the attention of the said man, who’d be sitting on the railing and somehow would be balanced enough even with a leg drawn up to his chest.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Esper would reply, every time, without fail.

“You didn’t even try, did you?” Mastermind would ask, already knowing the answer. He’d pass the mug to Esper, who’s take a slow sip, face scrunching at the fact that Mastermind didn’t sweeten his coffee, and hand it back afterwards.

“I knew you’d come,” Esper would smile sheepishly, avoiding the question. Really, this would classify as an answer by itself.

“How long have you been sitting here?”

Esper would look up at the moon and look deep in thought for a moment before turning back to Mastermind. “Since the dusk.”

Mastermind would heave a deep sigh. “You’ll catch a cold,” he’d say, and it’d earn him another smile from Esper. “Will you come to bed before sunrise?”

Esper would just shrug, body moving way too much on the thin railing. Mastermind would give him his coffee again, leaning down to press their lips together. Esper would taste faintly of the coffee and it’d make Mastermind lick his lips afterwards.

“Just come before you pass out on your own, okay?” Then, he’d disappear back inside, leaving Esper to slowly sip the coffee. The warm (no longer scalding) liquid would feel nice running down his throat.

When he’d finish, Esper would quickly go put the mug into the sink and make his way to Mastermind’s room. He’d wiggle his way into Mastermind’s bed, press right against him, and tangle their legs.

The still-awake Mastermind would drape an arm over his midriff and pull him closer.

“Finally,” he’d whisper, only letting himself fall asleep after Esper’s breathing shallowed out.

 


	11. Realizing yourself (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You did something!" Lusa exclaims, jabbing a finger at Mastermind's chest. Then he turns to Esper and points at him, too. "You too! What did you do?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //shrugs. boys who don't have prior experience with emotions falling head first into a sea of them is my weak point.
> 
> Part of a two-shot.

Esper swings his legs back and forth, kicking into the edge of the table every time. The sound is so repetitive that Mastermind had stopped paying attention to it long ago.

"That can't be a negative value," Esper gently reprimands him, eyes rowing the lines of his code. Even that became something he could deal with, though he did want to strangle the time traveler when he first started fixing the mistakes Mastermind was making - without the request.

But now, he just nods absently, lips forming the word 'thanks' automatically.

Mastermind's brain is so concentrated on his work that he doesn't notice the noises anymore. He does, however, mind when Lusa yells at the top of his lungs, the sound way too clear even through the reinforced walls.

"What did you do?!"

Lusa barges into Mastermind's room, obviously very angry and very distraught. Esper hops off of the table immediately and Mastermind turns in his chair.

"What're you talking about?" he asks, exasperated. He's in the middle of a long string of commands, he doesn't have time to talk right now.

"You did something!" Lusa exclaims, jabbing a finger at Mastermind's chest. Then he turns to Esper and points at him, too. "You too! What did you do?!"

Esper cocks his head to the side. "We didn't do anything," he says. He's sure they've been cooped up in here for most of the day. Which reminds him, he's pretty hungry.

"Bullshit!" Lusa brings his hands up, tugs at the strands of his hair and lets out a growl. "You did something and I…"

Esper and Mastermind exchange a look and Esper takes a step closer. "What happened?"

Lusa clenches his hands into fists. His whole body shakes. "You did something to me! I can't stop thinking about you! I close my eyes and there are your fucking faces, taunting me! I wake up from nightmares about you dying! I want to punch anyone else who touches you! _What_ is this?!"

Lusa looks on the verge of holding himself down, while Esper's mouth opens wordlessly. Mastermind doesn't say anything, either, but his attention shifts to the others completely.

Esper places a hand on Lusa's shoulder, gently, like he is afraid Lusa will punch him. Or run away.

His lips are pursed and he averts his eyes down even as he starts speaking. "This is… like what you feel to Mother, right?" They all tense at these words and Esper bites into his bottom lip hard.

Lusa nods jerkily. "Probably. It's stronger."

"I think people call that 'love'," Esper mumbles, "Probably."

Lusa's shoulders visibly tense, his face morphing into a frown as he looks at Esper. "No way," he shakes his head.

Esper shrugs softly. Mastermind is still silent.

Lusa shakes his head again. "There's no way!"


	12. Realizing yourself (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We wanted to tell you, but you didn’t answer the door.”

Quiet humming fills the otherwise silent kitchen as Esper prepares cocoa. Mastermind had asked for a coffee, but they’d been up for too long and Esper doesn’t want him to collapse _again_.

The steaming cups waft the gentle aroma all around. Esper licks his lips, taking a small sip. Perfect.

He’s about to take them back to Mastermind’s lab when the kitchen door creaks open. Esper turns to see Lusa entering.

“Lusa!” he greets him with a smile. The berserker had locked himself in his room for a whole week after that… uncomfortable exchange. So Esper would be lying if he said it wasn’t relieving to see him all right. “Do you want cocoa as well?” he offers, already turning to make more.

Lusa nods, although he knows Esper can’t see him. “Yeah, thanks.”

Esper makes him the cocoa just the way he likes it, with an extra spoonful of sugar. Esper prides himself for knowing the others’ preferences.

“Here you go,” he says, passing the mug to Lusa.

“Thanks.” Lusa sips it slowly and Esper sits on one of the chairs around the table, somehow able to balance on the edge of the backrest even with his own mug in hands. His feet tap against the soft cushion. Mastermind can wait a bit.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

“Yeah.”

“We don’t mind, you know,” Esper says, smiling. He’d talked with Masi after Lusa fled the lab that day. They’d somehow come to the conclusion that they wouldn’t mind giving it a shot.

Esper, as always, from his slight selfishness – it’d get him more attention from the others, after all – and Mastermind said he’d only do it as an experiment, though Esper knew immediately that he didn’t mean that.

“We wanted to tell you, but you didn’t answer the door.”

Lusa’s eyes shimmer in the dim light and his lips curl up slightly. “Really?”

Esper nods encouragingly. “Of course. Masi’s still working on something,” he says, hopping off the chair and placing a hand onto his hip. “Come help me get him into bed.”

“Masi?” Lusa questions, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oops,” Esper giggles, holding a hand to his mouth. “Don’t tell him I call him that. He’d yell at me again.”

“No problem.”

Esper picks up Mastermind’s mug and beckons Lusa. “Come on, we might even persuade him to sleep in one bed tonight.”

That sounds really tempting, Lusa admits. He follows the humming Esper.


	13. An experiment [SMUT]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Esper, can I borrow your Dynamo?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for... _filthy_ uses of Dynamo. Hhaha.

“Hey, hey, Esper!”

Esper wakes up with a start, wide eyes looking up at Lusa, who’s hovering over his bed with a sly smile that tells Esper he’s up to something right away. He just hopes he’s not included in whatever elaborate yet probably stupid idea the other came up with.

“What?” he bites out, annoyed that he was woken up. It was a miracle he’d even managed to fall asleep in the first place.

“Esper, can I borrow your Dynamo?” Lusa asks, doing that thing with his eyes that makes him look like an innocent puppy begging for a treat. Lusa couldn’t be any further from ‘innocent’, though.

Esper blinks up at the request in confusion. “Why?”

“I need it for something. Come on, just one of them is enough. Please?” He stretches the word, smiling softly while he pierces Esper with that puppy stare.

Esper groans, turning over to face the wall instead. “Sure, whatever, just let me sleep,” he mumbles sleepily, irritation slipping out of his voice only to be replaced by drowsiness.

Lusa’s lips twist up in a satisfied grin; he snatches one of the Dynamos splayed on the bedside table and quite literally runs out of the room, only throwing a ‘thanks, sleep well!’ behind himself.

Phase one complete.

* * *

Lusa’s plan is absolutely perfect. The hardest part is getting Mastermind into bed, but with a few (seven, to be exact) hours and a persistence in his annoying behaviour, he finally gets his counterpart to turn the computer off and go to bed.

All preparations are complete; it only took a few minutes to rewire Esper’s Dynamo to his own Nasod contact and an hour to go buy everything he needed from Velder.

“You’re more annoying than usual,” Mastermind grumbles next to him. “I had work to do, you know.”

Lusa winds his arms around Mastermind’s waist and brings him closer. “That’s because you’re so irresistible,” he cooes, grinning to himself when he catches Mastermind’s expression softening. He feels just a little bad for using his knowledge of Mastermind’s praise kink, but he knows that the other will absolutely love his idea.

Probably.

He tugs Mastermind onto his back and hovers over him, smothering his grin as he kisses along Mastermind’s neck.

“I want to try something,” he mutters into the crook of Mastermind’s pale flesh.

“What is it?” The other cranes his neck to give him more space to work as he lets out a little mewl when Lusa’s lips find his pulse point.

“You’ll see,” Lusa grins, deft fingers staring to work Mastermind’s coat and pants off.

Mastermind regards him with a dubious look, but he does help Lusa get his clothes off by wiggling out of them. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t look forward to what is coming next.

He shakes even before Lusa’s fingers touch him.

Those fingers roam his body purposefully, running over all the spots that make him writhe; his neck, his collarbone, the dip of his hips, his thighs…

He is about to tell Lusa to hurry up, but the brawler seems to read his thoughts as he finally encircles his member. Though he will act as if Lusa dragging him off from work is something terrible, he becomes putty in Lusa’s hands embarrasingly quickly.

Lusa’s lips and teeth leave small nips and hickies all over the exposed part of his neck and he can’t keep down the small sounds escaping his lips. He knows exactly how much Lusa likes hearing them,at least by the grin that is still pressing against the juncture of his collarbone.

He’s not even sure when Lusa gets a bottle of lube, but when he hears the other opening it, he pushes himself up.

“I can do it myself,” he rasps, his voice cracking in the middle there and he hates it, absolutely hates it.

He has to keep a little of his power over the situation, though, or he feels like he’ll go mad.

“No can do,” Lusa replies immediately, hand on his shoulder pushing him back down again. “I’m doing everything today. If you don’t like that, I can always tie your hands.”

Mastermind frowns up at Lusa. “Don’t threaten me, Lusa,” he growls lowly.

“What’ll you do about it?” Lusa asks, voice rising in a sing-song tone as he pull away to let Mastermind see the shit-eating smile that somehow makes his whole face glow beautifully. It also makes Mastermind want to punch it. Or kiss it. He just wants it gone, either way.

He fists the front of Lusa’s vest — at least he’s not wearing his metallic accesories, he’s not sure how he’d get those off without severely injuring Lusa in the process. Lusa is kind enough to help him, or... he did say he wanted to do everything today.

Mastermind leans back, his back hitting the cool bedsheets that feel like heaven against his heated skin. He’s just letting Lusa go through with this, yeah. He’s in total control of the situation. Complete. Control.

Lusa gets his clothes off no problem, even though he has to deal with all those buttons. Well, it comes from practice, Mastermind thinks. He can get his own clothes off pretty quickly, as well.

And then the bottle is back - where did Lusa even put it? more importantly, where’d he get it from? - and Lusa squirts the translucent liquid all over his fingers. The air is filled with a faint scent of strawberries. They both unconsciously lick their lips.

“It doesn’t taste good,” Lusa mumbles, smiling somehow bashfully.

It takes a second to process and then Mastermind’s brows draw together, his lips twisting down. “You tasted it?”

Lusa laughs quietly. “Guilty as charged.” His dripping fingers move down and Mastermind automatically moves his leg to the side. Then he catches the movement and places it over Lusa’s shoulder instead.

The fingers press against him and he tenses unconsciously, but Lusa’s other hand touches his thigh and he starts peppering kisses along the sensitive flesh. Mastermind shivers, turning his head to the side and hiding it in the pillow. The soft touches, however, had the desired effect, and his body relaxes slowly.

When he looks at Lusa again - just for a moment; his cheeks are flaming hot and he doesn’t want Lusa to see. not that he hadn’t seen them like this before, but still - Lusa meets his gaze with his own, lips curling into a smirk as he releases Mastermind’s flesh from them. A vivid red mark dominates the pale expanse of his thigh and Mastermind’s breath hitches when he notices it.

“Lusa…” He intends to growl, but his voice comes out as a sigh instead. In all honesty, he loves that. He loves that he has lasting proofs of Lusa’s —and Esper’s— love. He knows that if the others knew, they’d never let him live it down.

One of Lusa’s finger presses into him, slick and hot and Mastermind chokes on his breath, caught off guard.

“Don’t keep your voice down,” Lusa whispers into his ear. It’s soft and more of a request than anything. Mastermind knows he does that so he wouldn’t feel the need to fight back as he absolutely would if it sounded like an order. He releases his bottom lips from his teeth, wondering absently when he started biting it in the first place.

The finger presses further, until Mastermind can feel Lusa’s hand pressed as close to him as possible. It’s not enough. He grinds his hips down, though it does close to nothing to eleviate his need.

Lusa doesn’t tease, though — at least not this time. He moves the finger back and forth, crooking it here and there to coax Mastermind’s walls to relax further. He adds another finger, scissoring them slowly.

A needy sound leaves Mastermind’s dry lips and his hands fist the bedcovers, knuckles turning even whiter from the force of his grip. He bites his lip again, but then releases it. He might as well make Lusa as flustered as he is, right?

“Lusa— Fuck, Lusa,” he moans, eyes squeezing shut as Lusa’s fingers crook just right, sending a strong jolt through his whole body. “Lusa!” His plan seems to backfire when Lusa’s eyes take on a darker glint and he keeps pressing the pads of his fingers against his prostate.

He keens, hips bucking up off the bed in an unconscious attempt to get away. His swollen cock is leaking precum all over his stomach.

And then, just like that, the fingers leave and he heaves a long breath. His heart stutters and his muscles twitch and he just takes a moment to compose himself. Or, at least he wants to.

Something presses against him again, something bigger than Lusa’s fingers and he gets startled — when did Lusa get himself prepared? But when he opens his eyes again and loks up at Lusa and then down at himself, he sees it’s not actually Lusa pressing into him.

“Lusa…?” he questions, propping himself up a bit to see exactly what was going on. Lusa doesn’t seem to be too bothered and keeps pressing the thing inside, slowly. “What—?”

The thing is sleek and black and Mastermind catches a pink hue. His eyes widen and he tries to back off, but Lusa’s holding his hips and preventing him from moving. “Lusa!” he cries out, “Is that Esper’s—?!”

Lusa hums in agreement. “Yeah, he let me borrow it,” he says, sounding too pleased with himself. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Mastermind wiggles, but he can’t deny that the Dynamo is rubbing against him in all the right places. It’s slightly wider in the middle and Lusa only pushes it in so far, making sure it wouldn’t be too much. “Lusa, he's gonna— Fuck…” He’s losing his coherency, but he knows Esper won’t be happy with this. He’s gonna— Fuck, Lusa really does know how to make his brain a mush.

“Don’t worry,” Lusa cooes, moving the Dynamo out only to push it back inside. Mastemind can’t stop himself from bucking. “I’m sure he’ll be the next one to try it.”

“Lusa, n—” Mastermind cuts himself off with a whine, high-pitched and drawn out. His lips are parted to allow him to pant harshly. Lusa’s tempo speeds up, the Dynamo sliding smoothly in and out and then Lusa angles it upwards and the next thrust has Mastermind keening, back arched off the bed beautifully as he struggles to breathe with the loud moan still leaving his lips.

Lusa vehemently keeps the Dynamo aimed that way, making sure it brushes Mastermind’s prostate with each thrust. His chest swells with satisfaction when he hears all the sounds Mastermind is making, from mewls to throaty moans and gasps.

“You looks so pretty like this,” Lusa says, drinking in the blissed expression crossing Mastermind’s face. “Even more than usual. Esper is losing out on so much, not seeing you like this,” he chuckles.

“Nah, I’m not losing out on anything,” comes a third voice from behind them.

Mastermind stares at Esper with wide eyes, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Esper, it’s not—”

“So this is what you wanted my Dynamo for?” Esper turns to Lusa, who, while startled by his sudden appearence, is still grinning.

“Yeah. Your Dynamos are the only ones suitable for something like this,” Lusa explains. The fact that Lusa and Esper are holding a conversation like it’s not a big deal that Esper’s weapon is shoved so far up Mastermind’s ass that his vision is already dotted with dark; it puts Mastermind even more on the edge.

“Huuh,” Esper cocks his head to the side, eyes roaming all over Mastermind’s body and settling on Lusa’s hand, which still maintains its steady pace. “I never thought of that,” he says finally, “but you’re right.”

“Check this out,” Lusa drawls, grinning slyly at Esper. “Dynamo, start the heating system.”

Mastermind’s breath hitches, hands shaking as they hold onto the covers for dear life. The Dynamo gradually warms up, until it almost feels like it’s scorching Mastermind’s insides. He knows it’s not, but his breaths still shake. And Lusa never stops moving it.

And then Esper’s lithe fingers curl around his cock.

“Lu—sa!” Mastermind exclaims, saliva dripping from the corner of his open mouth as he stutters out moans. His teary, blurred vision rests on his counterparts as everything becomes too much. “Esper!”

Mastermind cums all over his stomach and Esper’s hand. Lusa mercifully pulls the Dynamo out, but Mastermind still shakes in overstimulation. His cheeks feel wet and he doesn’t have to touch them to know they aren’t sweaty. “Esper…” he croaks, voice throaty and decidedly destroyed. “It’s not… It was all Lusa’s idea…”

Esper licks the white off his fingers, not looking bothered at all. Then, when his fingers are clean, he turns to Lusa and his eyes glint lustfully. “I want that Dynamo inside of me. Now.”


	14. Enough is enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm fine," he says automatically, trying - vainly - to fix his slightly slouched posture. And it's true; he's fine. It's only been a few days without food, he's fine. He can go on for another week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> subtitled: pls don't do what esper does. ever.  
> Inspired by [this](http://dieabolic.tumblr.com/post/131644572464) post by [dieabolic](http://dieabolic.tumblr.com/).

"Stardust shower!" Esper exclaims, making sure the others hear him as he jumps up and starts raining down gravity spheres. The energy from the portal crackles unpleasantly along his skin.

He rides down the last sphere, closing the portal so it won't get out of control. His legs shake as he lands on the ground, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of Glitter warriors. Purple keeps flashing before his eyes and he's not exactly sure whether he didn't close the portal completely or whether it's just a play of his mind.

At this point, he wouldn't even be surprised.

"You two o--?!" he cuts himself off, eyes widening as he doubles over, hands clutching his sides and fingers digging into his skin through the thin material of his suit.

He bites down on the pained yell threatening to escape him, instead stifling it into a quiet moan. He waits for the agonizing wave to pass before he lets go of his stomach. The places where he dug in his nails ache distantly and he wants to scratch them again, but he knows that wouldn't help any.

He still wants to, though.

Only when he straightens up again does he notice that his whole body is shaking now, legs barely holding him upright. He can't even really feel the ground under his feet. He feels like his body isn't even his.

He swallows down the sickly bitter taste in his mouth and calls out again. "I didn't hit you, did I?"

"No."

Lusa and Mastermind are further up, waiting for him by another hall entrance. His wobbly feet carry him there.

Neither of them says anything, but they both regard him with a frown.

"I'm fine," he says automatically, trying - vainly - to fix his slightly slouched posture. And it's true; he's fine. It's only been a few days without food, he's fine. He can go on for another week.

Probably.

His statement does nothing to the expressions on his counterparts' faces, so he matches it with his own.

They continue on through the winding halls in silence, the only sounds their echoing footsteps and the quiet whirs of their Dynamos. Esper's footsteps sound oddly loud to him.

Another giant door towers before them, with engraved decorations. They seem to dance left and right. Esper's eyes hurt.

"The source of the power should be just further in here," Mastermind says, checking something. His voice sounds weirdly warbled and distant, like Esper's listening to him from underwater.

"Let's just go and lo-" Lusa's voice is the last thing he hears before the swimming darkness overtakes his whole vision. He stops feeling anything and for a moment it feels like he's floating.

Then he hits the stone ground with a dull thud.

* * *

The first thing he sees when he wakes is white. There's so much white, too much white. He shuts his eyes, grimacing at the pain shooting through his head.

"Oh good," comes a voice from his side. The left or the right? He blinks a few times until his teary eyes get used to the light. It's not even that bright.

Lusa sits on the side of his bed - the left side. Not that that matters too much, but Esper feels proud of figuring that out.

"You're up. Are you feeling well?"

Esper pushes himself up, finally registering the ache all around his body. He grits his teeth momentarily. "I'm fine."

Lusa regards him with a look that says he sees right through Esper's bullshit. He turns to the door; it's open.

"Mastermind! He's up!" he calls, standing up.

Esper looks up at him, also about to stand up. He's stopped by Lusa's hands, which push down his shoulders back against the mattress. His head hits the soft pillow.

"Lusa…?" he questions, staring up at Lusa's face. His expression is unreadable and it honestly worries Esper. Could this be…?

He wiggles, trying to push Lusa off of himself, but to no avail. The other's physical strength gives him an edge against the time traveler. No matter how much Esper thrashes, the grip on his shoulders doesn't budge. Instead, Lusa seats himself on his stomach, holding down his lower half with his weight alone.

"Lusa!" he cries, stuck between anger and fear. Is this another nightmare?

Or… Is this real?

Esper isn't sure which would be worse.

He's focused on Lusa, so he doesn't even notice Mastermind coming in until he stops by the bed. He's holding a tray which he sets down onto the bedside table.

"Good, keep holding him down, Lusa," he says, picking something from the tray.

Esper's mind reels. No. No no no no _no no no no_! Esper struggles with all his might, trying to escape. He doesn't want Mastermind to do experiments on him. He promised he wouldn't, he  _promised_!

His eyes fill with tears and he shuts them closed, hoping, wishing that he'd just wake up.

This has to be a nightmare, right? Mastermind promised… He  _promised_ he wouldn't…

"Esper, come on," Mastermind sighs. His fingers grasp Esper's chin and turn his head in his direction. "Why do you have to be so difficult? This could've been easily avoided if you just ate like a normal human being."

Esper opens his eyes to look at him. His brows are drawn together and his expression looks more pained than curious as Esper expected. He blinks through his tears and his sight focuses on the tool in Mastermind's hand.

It's a spoon.

"What…?" he chokes, glancing between Mastermind's and Lusa's faces.

"Just stay still and eat," Lusa says, his almost painful grip loosening.

Mastermind places the spoon to his lips. Esper stubbornly purses his lips and clenches his teeth. He's fine.

Mastermind sighs again. "Esper, we don't want to force you, but we will if you don't cooperate."

Esper turns his head away, burying his face into the pillow. Why won't they leave him alone? He's fine, he'll be fine for another few days. Then he might eat something, if only to stop his stomach from devouring itself. He doesn't want to give his body the satisfaction.

He doesn't deserve not to hurt. He did so much wrong, he hurt so many. This is nothing in comparison.

Lusa's fingers leave his shoulder and instead travel to his chin. They're surprisingly gentle as they tug Esper's head so he has to look at the brawler.

"Esper, please. For us, just eat," he begs - and it is begging, there's nothing else it could be classified as, not with that tone.

Esper's chest hurts. No… No, Lusa shouldn't speak like that. There's no reason for his voice to sound this feeble. He wants Lusa to smile again.

He nods.

Lusa's lips curl up and he pecks the corner of Esper's mouth. Esper's pretty sure he can hear him mutter 'thank god' as he sits on the mattress and pulls Esper into his lap, back to chest. His arms circle the other and hold him close, but not restrainingly anymore.

Mastermind seats himself in front of them and places the tray onto his knees. Esper can now see that there's a plate sitting on it, along with a small bowl.

"Say 'aah'," Lusa mutters into his ear. It makes him feel like a baby, but it's better than seeing the two of them pained, he supposes.

He opens his mouth and swallows down the shame welling in his chest along with the spoonful of mashed potatoes. They're good, he has to admit. He wonders if Mastermind cooked them.

Lusa presses a kiss to the side of his head while he eats and, sometimes, Mastermind also steals a kiss between spoonfuls.

The mashed potatoes disappear fairly quickly, Esper almost doesn't even notice. The ache in his belly subsides and he relaxes against Lusa. The other's warmth is very calming.

"Good job," Mastermind praises him, and his chest swells with happiness. "We've a reward, too."

He puts the tray away but takes the small bowl. It's filled with little cookies, topped with pieces of chocolate.

"Here," Mastermind says, handing him one. When he bites into it and feels the chocolate melt on his tongue, Lusa twists him to be able to kiss him properly. He's after the cookie, Esper knows when he feels the tongue push through his lips.

"Lusa," Mastermind reprimands him. "These are his."

Lusa grins unapologetically, resting his chin on Esper's shoulder.

The time travelers licks his lips and instead of finishing the cookie, brings it up to Mastermind's mouth instead.

"I don't mind sharing," he says, smiling. The cookies are good, like Ciel's, but with a different touch.

Mastermind shakes his head, but he smiles anyway and bites into the cookie. Esper tugs him close since he can't quite move with Lusa's arms still around him.

His and Mastermind's lips connect and Esper does the same thing Lusa did to him. Tasting the cookie on Mastermind's tongue, he has to admit that it tastes even better.

"Don't fucking do that again," Lusa mutters, still resting his chin on Esper's shoulder. For a moment Esper thinks he's talking about the kiss, but then it clicks that he's really talking about the lack of eating he'd been practicing lately.

There's no way he can argue, even if the guilt of his past mistakes still weights heavily in his gut. "Okay."


	15. Interest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Then, what’s wrong?”
> 
> “Nothing is—”
> 
> “We were wondering about that suit of yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt by senpai [dezimaton](http://dezimaton.tumblr.com/):  
> "Here's an idea: an age old mystery, how does DE get his suit on/off? (bonus: MM and/or LP trying to figure it out by feeling for a seam. if there is there one?)"

Esper is pretty good at acting like he isn’t watched. He takes the kettle off the stove and pours the steaming water into their mugs and then stirs the liquid with a spoon. Now he just adds some finishing touches. The strong aroma makes him sigh unconsciously and he turns to the sources of the stares.

He offers Lusa and Mastermind a questioning look, cocking his head to the side minutely. He sets the mugs onto the table. “Here.”

“Thanks,” they both mutter as they pick the ceramic up and slowly sip the coffee. Esper waits for them to close their eyes in bliss — he didn’t learn to make the perfect coffees for nothing, after all.

Mastermind likes his stronger, no sugar, but with a little milk. Lusa likes his with one and half spoons of sugar and a little cream. Esper takes a sip of his and licks his lips. He likes to add as much sugar as is possible without making it saturated. Turned out to be about five spoonfuls. Who needs cream or milk when you are already drinking perfection?

Even as he enjoys the drink, he can still feel the stares boring into him. He peers at the others over the edge of the mug. “What?” he asks, “Do I have something on my face?”

“No,” Mastermind replies, a bit too fast. Esper’s brows furrow.

“Then, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing is—”

“We were wondering about that suit of yours,” Lusa jumps in. Mastermind sends him a baffled and irritated glance. _Maybe you should talk more about your coordination if you’re going to do something like this_ , Esper thinks.

“What’s with it?” he asks, looking down at it. It doesn’t look dirty, he just cleaned it the other day.

“How do you put it on?”

“There’s a zipper. You really don’t know?” For a moment, he regrets not coming up with something absolutely baffling, just to fuck with them.

“No.”

“Wanna try taking it off?” Esper’s lips curl into a smirk and he stands up. He walks over to the other two and stands in front of Lusa, so Mastermind can see his back. He takes Lusa’s hands and places them onto the small of his back. “It’s here, just a bit lower.”

Lusa’s fingers ghost over his back gently, feeling for the zipper. They travel lower and Esper shivers. The grin is stil plastered to his face. “Lower,” he says, lips stretching further when Lusa reaches the bottom hem of his back armor.

“Juuust kidding,” he drawls, “That’s my ass.” He laughs when he notices how red Lusa had gone and peeks back at Mastermind, who is also going pink, though he masks it pretty well.

Esper pulls away from Lusa and shrugs off his jacket. He turns away from the others and shows them his back. The zipper is actually up by his shoulder blades, but it’s undone and shows a bit of his pale flesh. If he didn’t take off the jacket, they wouldn’t even know.

“It’s here, but I can’t really zip it up properly,” Esper complains, reaching a hand back and showing them exactly how far he could reach. Which is, to say, not very far.

Mastermind stands up and reaches for it. It’s sewn in so well it’s almost invisible. “I’ll do it for you,” he says, pulling it up.

Lusa’s hand is placed on top of his and they both turn to look at the berserk. Lusa is also grinning now, his tongue peeking out to lick his lips. “I really think you’re pulling it the wrong way, don’t you think?”


	16. Helping hand (or mouth) [SMUT]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shifts and whines again. Did he really…? Yeah, he definitely got hard thinking of Masi in shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I have come up with a challenge that I'll be doing now (probably, maybe, idk). I drew 9 pics of the Adds doing the do, and I wanted to write a smut to accompany each of them. So, this is first one of 9, I guess. Enjoy?? Ye.

Esper wakes up softly, blinking slowly, languidly as he adjusts his head on his hands, and then all at once, jumping up with a start and wide eyes looking around.

Mastermind’s lab is drenched in darkness save for the darkened glow of the screens. They project the blueprints Masi’d been working on last night, now finished. Every empty spot between the neat lines is filled with quickly scribbled and barely illegible notes.

Esper looks around for any sign of Masi, but there is none. He can’t remember when he fell asleep, but judging by the fact that Masi’s coat is now hanging off his shoulders, he feels safe saying it was before Masi finished his work.

He huddles on his chair, pulling the slightly-too-big clothing article closer and burying his nose in it. He can smell Masi faintly clinging to the coat, an ever-present smell of coffee blended with something like strawberry, of maybe a raspberry. No matter what berry it is, it’s probably Masi’s shampoo. If he really felt inclined to know, he could always go and check the bottle in the bathroom.

He brings his knees up and wraps the coat around them, thinking he wouldn’t mind falling asleep again. He absently wonders where Masi is, but if he left his coat here, he is just taking a shower or getting a coffee, so Esper isn’t too worried.

He imagines Masi in the shower, softly lathering his hair with his shampoo. The smell would waft all over the bathroom and stick long after he was done. Esper imagines him leaning his head backwards to rinse it off, eyes closed as he runs his fingers through the long strands. He imagines those fingers running down his neck, leaving small bubbles all over his skin. He imagines those fingers closing around his cock, the other hand pressing against Masi’s lips to stifle the soft groan his touch would earn.

Esper whines, leaning his head against his knees. As much as he’d like to see that in reality, he’s still very sleepy – he’s just lazy, but hey, if he can justify it, he will – and he doesn’t really want to go through the whole house just to get to the bathroom.

He shifts and whines again. Did he really…? Yeah, he definitely got hard thinking of Masi in shower.

He holds the coat close with one hand while he sneaks the other one between his legs. He slides a little forward on the chair so he can wrap his fingers around his cock, and starts pumping himself slowly.

He wiggles under the coat, fingers smearing the precum from his tip to make his strokes smoother. He can’t really manage long pumps with that position, so he opts for running his thumb over the crown and pressing it against the leaking slit.

“Hnn—“ He bites his lip, but he can’t stop pants and small gasps from escaping. “Hah, hah, uugh…”

He closes his eyes and presses his face into his knees. His hand speeds up and he fists the other in the fabric of Masi’s coat. Masi will yell at him for getting it dirty, but that’s a problem for later. He can always clean it.

“Aah,” he moans as he dips his finger into the slit. His whole body shudders.

“Hey, Esper, you up yet?” comes a voice from the doorway. Esper jolts up, looking at the newcomer with wide eyes. Lusa is wiping sweat off his brow with one hand, the other holding the door.

He has the perfect view of Esper’s flushed, heated cheeks and his blackened eyes.

“You want help with that?” Lusa asks with a knowing smile, already closing the door behind himself. He’s by Esper faster than he could even think of pulling his hand away from himself. “Hey, is that Mastermind’s coat?” he asks, quirking a brow.

Esper swallows heavily, his throat way too parched. He nods.

“He’s gonna yell if you get it dirty,” Lusa says, repeating Esper’s previous thoughts. They were both talking from experience. Masi’s coat really is a great article to masturbate in, according to them. “Come on.” Lusa huffs a little as he bends to pick the slighter man off the chair. He sets him onto the table, making sure to move aside any tools left all over the surface.

Esper squeaks, but he doesn’t fight back, merely holding Lusa by his shoulders. The berserker’s hands ghost over his hips and hook in the waistline of his pants, tugging them down in one fluid movement.

Esper’s hands slip up to Lusa’s head as he kneels between Esper’s legs. He automatically buries his fingers into the soft hair, slick with the remnants of sweat.

“Lusa…” Esper mutters, a mixture of a whine and a groan leaving his lips as Lusa’s breath hits his hot flesh. He regrets it immediately, because Lusa laughs, blowing hot air _right_ onto his arousal. “Hnn—“

“Wow, you’re so wet already,” Lusa observes, lips curled into a smirk as he runs his fingers over the length, coaxing another whine from Esper. “How long have you been at it?” He peeks up at Esper’s face. It’s a painting of perfection; hair tousled from sleep, cheeks red, eyes half-lidded and swimming with darkness, lips parted and heaving breaths… He decides it’s not the time to tease.

His lips wrap around the head, tongue pressing flatly against the underside as he sucks. Esper’s hips twitch involuntarily, the fingers carded in Lusa’s hair tightening, but not enough to actually hurt. Somehow, Esper always knows how to avoid hurting them, even when his mind is far gone.

Thinking of this makes Lusa sink lower, eyes still trained to Esper’s face. He wants to watch as he bites his lip, as it fails to quiet him, as he just lets himself make noise, as he closes his eyes in pleasure, as he shakes.

Lusa runs his tongue around the head, occasionally dipping it into the slit and licking off the salty precum gathered there. Esper’s whole body trembles when he swallows it down.

“Lusa,” Esper whines, tugging on his hair slightly. “Lusa, stop—“

He’s close.

“It’s okay,” Lusa says, except his mouth is full of Esper, so it comes out unintelligible, but the vibrations from his voice make Esper shudder nonetheless.

“Ghh, fuck—“ is all Esper can manage before he doubles over, pulling Lusa closer. He moans loudly, the sound warping into an almost sob at the end. He gasps through the afterglow, basking in the pleasure flooding his veins as he slowly descends from the high.

Lusa pulls away, smiling again – or is it still? – and looking very pleased with himself.

Esper tugs him and and tries to kiss him, but Lusa shakes his head and motions at the door. Esper is confused at first, but Masi comes in after a little while, clad in his pajamas and with a purple towel hung around his heck. He’s drying his hair with it, obvious to the two of them.

Lusa smirks at Esper once more and moves over to Masi before he can realize what’s going on.

Masi’s gasp when Lusa kisses him is way too loud in the silent lab, and Esper’s cheeks flush anew when he realizes that Lusa probably kept his cum in his mouth and is now pushing it into Masi’s mouth.

“Lusa, what in the—“ Masi exclaims, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. He notices Esper huddling on the table, amongst the scattered research notes. “Were you two just…?”

Lusa smirks at him, wrapping his hands around Masi’s torso and resting his chin on his shoulder. “I can take care of you, too,” he offers.

“I literally just came out of the shower.”

Lusa isn’t dettered. “Whatever, me and Esper need to take one anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if you join us, right?”

Masi never really knew how to say no to them, anyway.


	17. Stuck in heat [Smut]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not enough.
> 
> He groans in frustration; something inside of him aches and he knew this would happen, he knew it. He wants more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains cat hybrid au (i know, an au inside an au sHOCKING) and enough filth to quarantee me a throne in hell

Everything is hot and Esper can’t breathe properly.

His throat is parched, but swallowing hurts and he thinks getting some water might help. At least he hopes so. He stands from his bed; his legs tremble and almost crumple beneath him. He’s forced to use the wall for support to even stand upright.

His whole body shivers and he bites down on his tongue. Second later he tastes copper. How many times had he already bitten it today? He’s not sure.

Each step takes way too much willpower, but finally he makes it to the bathroom. The tap runs as he stares into the mirror hung above it.

His cheeks are flushed a deep red and this ears are flattened against his head. God, he looks just as messed up as he feels. He cups his palms and splashes the water onto his face. It feels nice and refreshing, but does little to nothing to his redness.

He drinks some water and, just as he thought, it doesn’t help. With a dejected sigh, he turns the tap off and begins the trek back. Maybe he could sleep it off.

Of course, a solution is right in front of him. Lusa went out today, but Masi’s room isn’t locked, he knows.

His tail lashes left to right as he bites his lip. Wasn’t Masi working on something? He shouldn’t… Just a peek to make sure wouldn’t hurt, though, would it?

He opens the door a crack and peeks inside. Masi is sitting on the ground in an impressive array of papers, with a small screwdriver in hand. It’s rare to see him working on physical augmentations to his inventions — he often gets Lusa to do the actual work for him.

“Are you working?” Esper asks, and his voice is quiet and breathy. He hopes Mastermind doesn’t notice.

“Yeah, why?” the other replies, not looking up from where individual parts of Apocalypse lay scattered in a small heap. His hands deftly change some components inside of one.

“Uh, nevermind,” Esper shakes his head and closes the door. He can deal with this alone.

The walk back to his room is a torture, and he groans when he finally reaches his bed. Not bothering with anything, he simply lets himself fall forward, face first onto the soft mattress. He groans again, shutting his eyes as a shudder wracks his body again.

He doesn’t want to give in because he knows it will only get worse and he won’t be able to deal with it alone, but he also wants it to _go away_. His hips buck and he grasps at the pillow. A sound, some strange mixture of a whine and a moan, leaves his lips as he lets go.

His body moves on its own, rutting against the sheets as his tail stands straight. His breathing sounds too loud to his ears, but he can’t control it, can’t even think anymore. His knuckles go white from the force of his grip and he presses his face into the pillow.

Even through his sweatpants, the friction is enough to make white spots dance in his vision. He grinds down, moving his hips in long, slow thrusts and then abruptly shifts to fast, short ones. A small trickle of drool dribbles down the corner of his mouth, but Esper is too far gone to care.

Pleasure pools in his abdomen and spreads, like liquid fire, all over his body. “Ghh—” he chokes on a moan and comes into his pants, fingers digging into the pillow as he shakes through the afterglow.

The fire burning bright in his chest cools a little bit, but it’s still there even as Esper gasps for breath. He’s sweaty and sticky, but that wasn’t enough.

His hand delves into the soiled pants without a second thought, fingers curling around the still hard flesh. His cum makes his strokes much smoother, and he grits his teeth when a jolt of pleasure travels up his spine.

He strokes himself clumsily, too impatient to care. He wants release. He wants release, and he wants it _now._

His other hand joins the first one and his hips start rocking in the same rhythm as his movements; he breaths fast and shallow, every intake interrupted by a groan or a breathy moan.

“Hnn— aah,” he pants as he runs the pads of his thumbs over the leaking slit, smearing the transparent precum gathered there. His fingers gliding over his cock make obscene noises and those just spur him further on.

It’s not long until he’s trembling, fingers shaking as he comes again, this time with a high-pitched whine. He struggles to regulate his breathing, but it’s useless, he can’t. He feels sluggish, but his erection doesn’t even wane.

It’s not enough.

He groans in frustration; something inside of him aches and he knew this would happen, he _knew_ it. He wants _more_.

He puts the drippling drool in his mouth to good use and sucks on his fingers, running the flat of his tongue over them languidly. He tastes himself and groans at the salty taste even as he continues coating the digits with spit.

He’s not sure if it’s enough — it’s absolutely enough, the drool is running down his wrist and dripping all over the pillow —, but he can’t wait anymore. He sneaks his hand between his legs and passes by his cock until the pads of his fingers touch his rim, smearing the spit all over.

He shudders heavily and squirms as he worms his middle finger through the tight ring. He goes slowly, and his body hates him for it. He wiggles the finger, moaning quietly at the touch of his finger to his inner walls. First knuckle, second knuckle, and then he presses it as deep as it can get.

The fact that his whole hand shakes doesn’t make this any easier on him. His cock leaks almost a stready stream of precum, and Esper decides it’s too hot. It’s been too hot for a while, though.

He wiggles out of his sweats and kicks them hastily away. They end up somewhere on the floor, where they will stay until he finally gets over this heat. Tugging off his shirt with just a single hand proves to be a little more difficult, but with a lot of tossing and frustration, he finally gets it off.

And he goes right back to task at hand, starting to move the single digit within himself. He moves, once to match it and once to escape from it, and groans loudly. He needs to _hurry up._

He grimaces when he presses his index in as well, but after a few moments of waiting in painful stillness, he moves them and the friction tears a moan from him. The fingers don’t keep a steady rhythm, Esper starts to immediately thrust them in and out as he can.

He curls up on his side, his tail curling between his legs and waving in front of his face. It trembles in time with the shocks of pleasure that jolt around Esper’s body. The fur stands on end, making the tail look bigger than it actually is. Too tempted not to, Esper sticks out his tongue and licks the tip of his tail. A shudder rips through him and he squirms, moving his hand just a bit faster.

He curls his fingers, brushes where it makes him arch his back and keen, but still, it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

He can’t do this alone.

Whining deep in his throat, Esper reaches his other hand up to the bedside table, where his Dynamos lie in sleep mode. His stiff fingers grab one and yank it closer, pressing its centre to activate it.

Speaking is a rather difficult task, he finds when he opens his mouth but all that comes out is a rasp. He has to swallow a few times before he’s sure he won’t tear his throat raw. “Dynamo... “ It doesn’t sound like him, or at least that’s what he thinks, but the Dynamo recognizes his voice with no problems. “C-Call Masi…”

The Dynamo blinks purple once to indicate it understood the command and Esper throws his head back onto the pillow. The call is picked up almost immediately.

“Esper? Did something happen?” Mastermind sounds mildly concerned, though it seems his attention is still fixated on whatever he’s fixing — probably still Apocalypse.

Esper feels so bad about pulling him away from work, but he’s still burning up from within and that overshadows everything else he is thinking. “Masi,” he whines, because that’s all he can manage when he drags his fingers over his walls and directly over where his prostate is. “Masi, help me… ple—ase…”

There’s only silence from the other end of the call for a moment and then Esper can tell he has Masi’s undivided attention. It should be embarrasing that that makes him squirm more.

“Esper? What’s going on?”

Esper groans; he’s losing his damn mind! Why won’t Masi just come here?! “Masi! Come here!”

There’s no answer again, but the call definitely cuts off and Esper isn’t sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. His fingers can’t stay still and though he is on the edge, balancing precariously, he can’t get over it anymore and if Masi just decides to ignore him he’ll _die_. Or at least it feels like that.

It’s absolutely relieving, even more than Esper would ever admit, when his door opens, Mastermind yanking the doorknob with more force than was absolutely necessary, and regards the room with suspicious look.

“Masi!” Esper exclaims, craning his neck to look at the other. He wasn’t even aware that his eyes were brimming with tears until now, but Masi’s face is blurred until he blinks them away. “Masi, help me!”

“Esper,” Mastermind says, but it doesn’t sound angry, thankfully, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” His fingers hook in his tie and pull, loosening it so he can unbutton his vest and shirt.

Esper pulls his fingers out of himself, along with a high-pitched groan of displeasure. Turning onto his back, he watches hungrily as Masi starts to strip himself. Eagerly drinking in the sight of pale flesh being revealed, Esper picks his dry lips.

"I want you inside me," he says the first thing that comes to mind. "Please…"

"Don't worry," Mastermind coos, chucking his clothes into a pile by the foot of the bed.

"I already prepared myself, so just… hurry up," Esper begs, wiggling. He wants to be touched, he _needs_ to be touched.

Masi's eyes glint predatorily and he climbs onto the mattress. Esper's thighs are grasped and spread and he gasps. Masi's fingers are hot and it feels like he's burning through his flesh.

He reaches between them and runs his fingers over Esper's entrance, frowning minutely. "You didn't use lube. Where is it?"

Esper whines when the other leans away to look for the bottle. Mastermind's tail swishes softly left to right as he rummages through the drawers full of random items. He finds Lusa's old necklace, and though he makes a mental note to ask Esper later, he ignores it. Even if he asked Esper now, with the state the time traveler is in, he wouldn't be able to answer.

He finds the almost-empty bottle laying somewhere in the corner of the second drawer. They probably need to go buy another. Which is going to an adventure, if the last time they had gone together was any indication.

"You comfortable?" he asks, turning back. Though Esper nods impatiently, he takes the time to place a pillow underneath his hips.

"You should've called me sooner, you could've escaped all this frustration, you know," he says as he tips the bottle and squirts some of the transparent liquid onto his palm.

Esper bites his bottom lip, but he gasps loudly when Masi presses two of the slick fingers inside of him. His fingers unclench from the pillow and instead clutch at the other's shoulders, digging his blunt, black nails into the skin there.

"I… I didn't want to- deal with it at all… You were working and… Lusa went out, so I- I just wanted to ignore it…" Esper rasps out, rocking into the slender fingers pumping into him. When they start scissoring, he lets his head fall backwards with a moan.

"You know you can't ignore your heat," Mastermind replies and pulls the fingers out, much to Esper's chagrin. "Next time, come right away, okay?"

Esper nods uselessly, struggling for breath as his whole body trembles unconsciously. Mastermind pours out more of the lube and lathers his erection with it.

Esper looks up at him through half-lidded, blackened eyes, his cheeks flushed so red it looks almost like all his blood is gathered there. That is not the case, though, his weeping cock would beg to differ.

"Alright, legs on shoulders," Mastermind says, settling between Esper's legs. Esper moves them to rest on the other's shoulders and lets his hands rest by his head.

Masi positions himself and Esper holds his breath only to almost choke on it when he starts pushing in. He claws on the bedsheets, probably tearing them with his grip. "Ma-si!" he cries out, breathless.

Mastermind groans when he fully enters and stops for a moment to let Esper adjust himself. Esper, however, doesn't seem to like that. He tries bucking his hips to get some friction on his straining cock. "Masi, come on!"

Mastermind takes ahold of Esper's thighs and braces his knees. Esper's ankles cross behind his back and tug him closer. "You okay?" he asks anyway.

"Yesss!" Esper hisses loudly. He rocks his hips impatiently. "Come on!"

Mastermind decides to just give him what he wants and starts thrusting, hard and deep, basking in the beautiful sounds leaving Esper's lips. Wanton moans spill out one after another, filling the heated air. Mastermind loves them.

Esper matches his tempo perfectly, arching his back as much as the position allows him. Only a few thrusts are enough to get him over the edge where he'd been for so long, and he spills again with a drawn-out moan that cuts off as his voice cracks.

Mastermind doesn't let down, keeps thrusting with vigor and even curls his fingers around Esper's soiled length, pumping him in time with the movements of his hips.

Esper's whole body trembles nonstop, dark tears leaking from his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. His tail curls tightly around Masi's and his ears flatten further against his head.

It's too much, too much but still not enough, and he's torn between clutching Mastermind as close as he can and pushing him away to curl up into a ball. In the end, Mastermind's touch keeps him in place and he keeps whimpering, sobs bubbling up from him without a stop.

"Masi!" he cries, squeezing his eyes closed tightly. "Masi, Masi, Masi, Masi!" It becomes like a mantra, devolving back into incoherent moans.

Mastermind's own moans are drowned out by Esper's volume, and he feels intoxicated himself. He pounds into the slighter body with abandon, wanting nothing more than to satisfy the burning inferno within Esper.

Their bodies are coated in sweat and their abdomens in a mix of their precums and lube, and their skin makes obscene slaps with each thrust.

Mastermind leans down, clamping his teeth down on Esper's shoulder. His canines pierce the thin skin and he tastes copper, along with the cry that Esper makes right next to his ear.

Esper loses it.

He clings to Mastermind with bruising force, his body seized in the pleasure again and white fills his vision until everything fades and he's floating, weightless, in the white abyss.

He's not sure how long he is there, thoughtless and content, but he comes back to himself sometime, and sees Mastermind's blissful expression just a hair's breadth away from his.

He cranes his neck and presses his lips to the other's languidly, a content smile playing on his.

"Thank you," he whispers, voice broken and harsh from overuse. His whole body feels sluggish and he curls up, heedless of the cum trickling down his thighs.

Mastermind doesn't even finish his reply before he hears quiet purring. Esper had fallen asleep.

He ruffles the sweat-slicked hair on the other's head and gently pulls out, making sure not to move the time traveler too much. He presses a kiss to his scarred cheek and sits down next to him.

Esper half crawls onto his lap on his own, head resting on the genius' thigh in content.

Mastermind buries his hand in that mop of hair again, stroking the strands gently. He sighs and pulls the covers over the two of them while reaching for Esper's Dynamo.

"Dynamo, call Mastermind," he says, intending to call his Dynamo. He can work in Esper's room, too, it doesn't really matter.

"Voice command unrecognized," the Dynamo lets him know, the robotic voice level and quiet.

His cocks an eyebrow, but then smiles softly. "Dynamo, call Masi."

The device blinks purple.


	18. Sealing of time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dynamo, engage recording mode._
> 
> There's shuffling of papers, a muted exhale and a squeak as Esper presumably sits down on his chair.
> 
> _Today, I died._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve tried a different writing style for this, so if it sucks I blame it on that hahah.  
> But really, I’ve wanted to write something about Seal of Time for some time and... ta-dah!

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

There's shuffling of papers, a muted exhale and a squeak as Esper presumably sits down on his chair.

 

_Today, I died._

 

Another pause. Esper growls, his fist banging on the tabletop.

 

_I'm trembling so much I can't even use a keyboard!_ He sounds so angry, or maybe frustrated is a better word to describe it.

 

_Fuck!_ A few deep breaths and more shuffling and then Esper's voice becomes clearer as he faces the Dynamo.

 

_Fuck, okay. It is uh…_ A few taps on the screens. _Thursday, week thirty-five after learning Seal of Time. Wait, again? Wasn't it Thursday yesterday? Damn it, I probably got lost again. No, it’s definitely Thursday._ His mutters trail off into a silence.

 

He clears his throat.

 

_So, as I said, I died today. I went to Altera. I- I needed — I still need — a better vessel for the El power, so I went back to the Core. I was looking over Eve’s pod and I… I didn’t notice, but there was a leftover Nasod. It stabbed me from behind._

 

A faint sound echoes from the background and Esper falls silent, even his breathing stiffled so he can listen in.

 

_It’s okay, it’s okay, they don’t know I’m back yet. Fuck, I need to clean this or they’ll… fuck! Dynamo!_

 

Esper’s boots thud on the floor as he goes to the bathroom. The Dynamos follow him, air whooshing around them slightly. Esper turns on the tap and starts cleaning himself while he talks.

 

_The Nasod stabbed me. It was… I was dead. There was a drill through my chest, I saw it when I looked down, I_ saw _it. Everything went black after that. The… The scans say I was dead for seven minutes._

 

He turns the tap off and starts stripping off his ruined clothes. They rustle as he shoves them into the waste bin.

 

_But I woke up. I woke up and I didn’t know what was going on and I knew I was supposed to be dead there was a_ fucking drill through my chest _but I… I was fine._

 

Esper takes a deep breath and then chuckles lightly. It’s not a happy chuckle, far from it; it’s a sound only someone who has given up would be capable of conjuring. _And you know whose fault that is? The seal’s. Learning that seal was the biggest mistake I could’ve ever done._

 

* * *

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

Sounds of keys peing pressed continues for a moment even after Esper starts the recording. He keeps at it, seemingly forgetting that the Dynamo had really started. _So, if I manage to find a way to kill myself without the seal going off on its own…_

 

_Oh, right, the recording._

 

_I’m working on a way to work around the seal. This can’t continue on like this… I’m not alive anymore. That’s a fact, and living on borrowed time is the worst feeling I’ve experienced._ He pauses. _Yet._

 

A few more taps and then Esper sighs, leaning on the table. The way he rests his head on his forearm muffles his voice slightly. _I have to find a way._

 

_I_ will _find a way._

 

* * *

 

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

Esper’s voice trembles, and it’s soft. He’s trying to be quiet.

 

_Hands are too shaky to keep writing, but I can’t stop now. Have to keep quiet in case the others are awake, though. Attempt number sixty-one, stomach laceration._

 

He chokes on a pained moan, but slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle himself. The next few minutes of the audio are a plethora of sobbing and moaning, until finally it fades to full silence, sans the dripping on blood against the floor. A thud and then everything quietens for real.

 

An undefinable amount of time passes, and then the sobbing starts anew.

 

Esper mumbles, barely audible through his choked breaths, _Attempt sixty-one, failure._

 

* * *

 

 

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

Esper beams, it’s obvious from just his tone. He shuffles about the lab, moving some things here and there.

 

_I did it, I found a way. I will run 500 mega ampers through my brain. I’ve constructed a helmet that will amplify the Dynamo’s current enhancing abilities and redirect it straight into my own body. There’s no way I can live through that._

 

The chair squeaks as he sits down. He shuffles with screwing one of the Dynamos to the helmet while ordering the others.

 

_Keep recording and start a full body scan. I want it all on my desktop. Hopefully I won’t have to see it…_ he trails off.

 

_Well, here goes nothing. Mastermind and Psyker should be out, I made sure. I’m not sure how my body will fare, but I don’t want them interfering. I don’t want them to stop me._

 

A beat of silence.

 

Esper laughs.

 

_I think… I_ think _they’d try to stop me, anyway…_

 

There’s silence after that, but Esper’s fingers start tapping away again, and then he mumbles _Okay_ , quietly from under the helmet.

 

_AAH—!_

 

Something short-circuits and hisses dangerously, but that’s all there is to hear for a long while. A startled breath comes from Esper as he comes back, immediately slumping forward and bracing himself on the table. His palms smack against the surface. He gasps for breath frantically.

 

_It didn’t work,_ he mutters dejectedly. _It didn’t work, why didn’t it work, it should’ve worked, it should’ve—_

 

* * *

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

A fist hits the table, over and over. _Fuck, I’m bleeding. There’s blood all over the panel..._ Esper shuffles, wiping himself on his pants. _I’m recording the outcome of experiments fifty-seven through sixty-six._

 

_Fifty-seven, beheading._

_Fifty-eight, fall from height._

_Fifty-nine, drowning._

_Sixty, a shot to the head from Ciel’s gun._

_Sixty-one, splitting by a portal._

_Sixty-two, prolonged stay in the void._

_Sixty-three, arsenic poisoning._

_Sixty-four, chest laceration._

_Sixty-five, torn apart by a demon._

_Sixty-six, burned._

 

_All failures, naturally._

 

Esper takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. _I do have an idea that could work, though._ Should _work._

 

* * *

 

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

Esper’s steps echo as he paces back and forth. He abruptly stops only to begin anew, faster and more frantic than before.

 

_It should be Monday, or— maybe it’s Tuesday? I don’t know. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the day of this experiment. Twenty-first. I think, I— I’ve— I’ve tried so many things, but nothing works, nothing_ works _. This should be impossible, it—_

 

He falls silent as a knock echoes from the outside.

 

_Esper? Are you okay? You haven’t come out in a long time!_

 

_Lusa— I’m fine! Go away!_

 

Lusa doesn’t leave, though, he stays in front of Esper’s lab. _Seriously, what’s gotten into you? I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you!_

 

_Nothing’s up with me! Go away, Lusa!_

 

A sigh. _A’ight then._ Lusa’s footsteps gradually fade away and the lab is drenched in silence again.

 

_This shouldn’t be happening at all,_ he mumbles.

 

* * *

 

_Dynamo, engage recording mode._

 

_Day thirty-nine of the starving experiment. I can’t feel anything below my neck. I think it hurts. I think the numbness is actually pain. There’s no way to check, though._

 

Esper cuts himself off with a pained groan.

 

_No, that’s definitely pain. It’s been here so long I keep forgetting about it… But that’s… that’s not what I wanted to talk about._

 

_What I wanted… The seal shouldn’t work this time. From what I’ve observed, it casts itself periodically and its effects are therefore slower than when I cast it myself. So, with my body as it is now, it should end up with no point to which to return to. No— Yeah. Yeah, that was right. Meaning that I will end up really dead at_ some _point. I just don’t know when that point will be._

 

_The others are getting more persistent. Lusa sat by my door for three hours straight today. I think… I think he left some food outside? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, this will not take much longer now._

 

* * *

 

_Dynamo, engage recording mode—_

 

_It’s not working— It’s not— not working— Fuck!_

 

A thud resounds as Esper falls down, crumpling onto the floor into an undignified heap. _I— Oh fuck…_

 

Esper heaves with heavy breaths. He groans loudly. _It didn’t kill me like it was supposed to. Instead, my body is just useless no— now. Fuck, fuck, I don’t even know what day it is anymore—_

 

_Fuck! My vision’s swimming again, I’m—_

 

* * *

 

That’s where the recordings cut off, and Mastermind turns to Lusa, who stands by the table, gripping its edge so hard his knuckles are white. He’s gazing at the screens in front of himself. There are photos to accompany most of Esper’s ‘experiments’, and just the sight makes Lusa want to puke.

 

Mastermind doesn’t look much better.

 

“This is…” Mastermind starts, but shakes his head. He can’t continue.

 

“...sick,” Lusa finishes for him. He doesn’t tear his eyes off the screens, because he knows if he did, he’d just end up staring at Esper crumpled behind them. “I can’t believe Esper killed himself seventy times!”

 

Sixty-seven, Mastermind wants to correct him, but he knows there’s no point in it. “The seal’s effects drove Esper that far… I can’t believe we didn’t notice a single time…”

 

“You weren’t supposed to notice,” Esper mutters behind them, startling them to turn around. “I’m back. Again.” He turns his head to the side and instead of looking at Mastermind or Psyker or the screens, stares at the wall.

 

“That’s not happening again.”

 

Esper whips back, staring at the other two in shock. “What?”

 

His half-expectant look is met by a pair of glares. This time it’s Mastermind who speaks up.

 

“You’re not dying again.”


	19. Sound of silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He should have stopped this from happening in the first place. He should’ve jumped into the argument before it got so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //lays down

It’s so weird.

The atmosphere is weird, it almost makes Esper uneasy. He kicks his feet, periodically hitting the side of the counter he’s sitting on. He busies his hands with nursing the cup of coffee that he’d made for Mastermind.

The inventor had promptly refused it.

He sips the bitter liquid, eyes flicking between his two counterparts. They’re all in the conjoined living room/kitchen, but they might as well be all in different dimensions again.

Esper had given up on trying to strike up a conversation with either of them – or even just getting them to pay attention to him – a long time ago. He’s not sure how long they’ve been sitting in silence like this, but the coffee is already cold, even though he had only drank about a third of it.

He should have stopped this from happening in the first place. He should’ve jumped into the argument before it got so bad.

He curses his own fear. What was he scared of? He’s not sure. Maybe he was scared of them both turning on him? Of them starting to fling insults at him as well?

The things they were yelling at each other made him flinch even if they weren’t aimed at him. It’s no wonder Mastermind doesn’t want to talk to Lusa. But they’re still in the same room (disregarding the fact that they are both vehemently pretending the other doesn’t exist), so that’s good, right?

_“All you ever do is work on your drones! Can’t you stop sometimes and at least pretend to spend time with us?!”_

_“And all you ever do is punch things, yet neither of us calls you out on it. So what’s your problem?”_

_“At least I go outside to punch things and don’t coop up inside all day long!”_

_“What does the outside have to do with this? You think I don’t get enough oxygen in my lab? I do, don’t worry your muscle-powered head, you might hurt yourself.”_

_“Well, at least I get some actual human interaction, unlike you. You just sit around with your stupid pets all the time! That’s all you’re good for!”_

Esper flinches at the memory, as well. That was a low blow, and they all knew it. He’d expected Masi to come up with something witty, but the inventor had cut the conversation dead after that, going back to working on the upgrade for his Activator drone.

They hadn’t moved an inch, except for Masi’s busy hands. Occasional sounds of metal clinking against metal can he heard through the strained silence.

Lusa is staring at the wall with a frown. Esper can’t tell if he feels sorry or not.

“Aren’t you guys hungry?” he asks quietly, trying to get their attention one more time.

He’s ignored again.

* * *

 

It’s not even weird anymore. Now it’s just plain irritating.

Esper knocks on Lusa’s door, just a little more forcefully than he intended at first. “Lusa!” he calls, and there’s a sharp edge to his voice, “Still not coming out?”

He doesn’t even need to try the door handle to know that the laboratory is locked. It had been locked for days.

“I brought you dinner!”

He gets no answer, as per usual, so he leaves the tray on the floor, but stays for a moment longer, glaring at the door. Lusa’s gall is still worlds beyond him. The berserker had been acting as if he was the one wounded by the argument.

Mastermind isn’t much better off, though.

Esper carries the other tray to the inventor’s room. He knocks softly, but doesn’t wait before pushing the door open. “Masi,” he calls to the slumped figure sitting on the bed. “I brought dinner.”

He seats himself on the crumpled sheets next to Mastermind and places the tray between them.

Mastermind glances up at him momentarily, but his gaze falls right back to the screwdriver he’s rolling in his hand. Apocalypse sits by his thigh, switched into cat mode. It’d been switched to cat mode all week, and Esper even found Masi snuggling it tightly while sleeping.

He’d rejected Esper’s offer that he’d sleep with him, and Apocalypse has a built-in heating system, so that may be why Mastermind chose to sleep with it instead.

He’d been altering it almost all the time, but it was mostly small modifications, like the missile trajectories and the anti-gravity ability. In other words, nothing too substantial.

_It’s so quiet here_ , Esper thinks absently.

“Eat it,” he says, squeezing Masi’s thigh get his attention again. “I’m serious. I _will_ force feed you again.”

Masi doesn’t react, and Esper sighs, standing up.

* * *

 

Irritating doesn’t even begin to cover how it feels after a week. Infuriating, maybe, but still not right.

The stove’s flame crackles quietly as he heats up the pot of stew he cooked earlier. It didn’t taste anything like Lusa’s, but it was the best he could do with his limited cooking abilities.

Three bowls wait ready on the counter to be filled, spoons and trays by them.

Esper taps his foot on the floor as he waits. It’s quiet, the whole place is so _quiet_ and he can’t take it. He hadn’t heard the others’ voices in so long, it almost feels like they aren’t even inside. He knows they are, though, and that just makes the feeling even worse.

The silence is suffocating. Esper balls his hands into fists. He can’t take it, he can’t take the never ending silence again. His hands shake by his sides and his chest feels tight. It feels like he’d just been punched, but there’s no physical pain. His hands move up to tug on his hair unconsciously as he grits his teeth.

He feels tears prick the backs of his eyes and he blinks furiously to clear them. No, this is too much like all those years spent in the constant presence of silence, and he can’t handle it. Not anymore.

He needs to get rid of the silence. He needs some _noise_.

“ ** _AAAAH_** —!“ he screams, the sound ripping from the depths of his throat and bouncing between the walls. It drags on until he’s out of breath and his voice cracks, and he takes in a choked breath and suddenly he’s on the floor, knees aching as they take the brunt of his fall.

The sobs tearing from his lips are disgustingly pitiful, but at least they overshadow the oppressing weight of the silence. Through blurred eyes, he stares up at the stove. The stew is boiling now, and it’s even starting to spew all around.

Esper pulls himself up, harshly wiping his cheeks and eyes with his palms. He puts the fire out and trudges back to his room. His appetite is long gone; in fact, he’s sure he’d puke up anything he tried to eat.

The others can starve for all he cares.

* * *

The screams are intolerable.

Not because of their volume or their consistency, but because they sound so _pained_. Lusa bites the inside of his cheek, tasting copper only moments later.

He needs to go check it out. He has no idea what’s going on with the other two, but by the sounds of it, nothing good.

He should’ve stopped this childish act a long time ago, but if he’s being honest, he’s still angry at Mastermind. He’s the only one who can’t put away his work, not even for a moment, for the others. It grates on his nerves and – though he would deny this to death – even makes him a little self-conscious.

Aren’t they more important than drones?

He’s angry at himself for not being able to put his thoughts into words. He had ended up starting an argument, when all he had wanted was for Mastermind to pay them some attention.

The more time he spent in his room, the more he regretted all that he’d said, but the longer passed, the antsier he felt about coming out to apologize.

There’s another scream from the outside, and he feels a shiver run up his back, just like with each and every one of them.

With a heavy feeling set in the pit of his stomach, Lusa turns the key in his door and pulls it open. With the scream fading, the hallway is strangely quiet, and his bare feet tap loudly against the floor.

He stops minutely before Masi’s door, steeling his nerves as he raises a hand to knock. There’s no response.

With a deep breath, he grabs the door handle. To his surprise, the door’s unlocked and he enters the laboratory bathed in darkness.

The electronics cast a faint pink light here and there, but all the monitors are in sleep mode and if he didn’t see the slumped figure on the bed, Lusa would bet there was no one inside the room.

“Mastermind?” he calls, quietly closing the door behind himself. The figure lifts its head and looks at him.

Mastermind has Apocalypse set in his lap, hand petting it absently. It stops when he registers Lusa in the room, though. His face looks like he hasn’t slept all week, with prominent dark circles under his eyes and hair that looks like he had ran his hands through it for hours on end.

“Look who it is,” Mastermind mutters, averting his gaze to the wall. His hands grip Apocalypse closer just a little more.

“I heard screams. What’re you doing?”

Mastermind’s eyes narrow as he glares at the white paint. He ‘tch’s, face twisting into a small grimace. “Nothing, just spending all day with my _pet_. That’s Esper you’re looking for.”

Lusa’s face scrunches at the tone of Mastermind’s voice, but he knows he deserves it. He takes a few hesitant steps towards the bed. Though Mastermind doesn’t look at him, he doesn’t recoil either, so Lusa takes that as a sign to continue.

“Masi… I…” He clicks his tongue, yet again unable to voice his thoughts properly. But since he’s here already, he’s going to apologize properly. “I’m sorry, I—I shouldn’t’ve said that. I didn’t mean it, I—I was just angry and…” He bites his bottom lip. The words feel so awkward and he fears that the inventor won’t understand that he really _is_ sorry. “Please forgive me.”

Masi doesn’t say anything, but he looks up at him, looking at him with that calculating expression to see if he’s lying.

Lusa’s next words are so quiet Mastermind almost misses them. “Can I hug you?”

He nods once, slowly, and pushes Apocalypse out of his lap. Lusa’s arms encircle him and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t missed this kind of contact. His hands automatically clench in the fabric of Lusa’s crumpled shirt, trembling as he pulls the other closer. He’s only half aware of when he starts crying again.

“I hate you,” he mutters into the crook of the berserker’s neck, but it’s devoid of any heat and with the added crack of his voice, only sounds desperate.

“I know,” Lusa replies immediately, holding him tightly. His lips curl up into a small smile as he rests his chin on top of Masi’s head.

“…don’t do that again. I’m…”

“Yeah, I know. I won’t, promise.”

They stay like that until another, slightly-muffled scream catches their attention. Mastermind pulls away, his expression warped in worry. “He’s been at this for the whole day. I’m not sure if he wants to see us.”

“We won’t know until we look, right? I don’t really want this to turn into another week of… well, this.”

Mastermind nods absently, slowly standing up from the bed. As they leave the inventor’s lab, Lusa takes note of all the empty dishes littering the curved table. So Esper took care of Masi, as well? Realizing this, something tugs at Lusa’s heart.

Esper’s room isn’t locked, but when they open the door, they stop dead in their tracks. The whole room is a mess, there are things strewn about all over the place; the whole floor is littered with shards of things that lay broken by the walls; there’s an open portal in one corner, humming with concentrated energy and casting soft glow on the room.

Esper is sitting in another corner, knees drawn up to his chest and hands holding them tightly as he cries his eyes out. Between the strings of sobs and shaky breaths, they catch him mumbling something under his breath, so fast they cannot even hope to decipher it.

“Esper?” Mastermind calls out cautiously, but it’s more than enough for Esper to whip his head up, his mumbling coming to an immediate halt as he looks up at them with wide eyes.

He breathes heavily, holding back sobs. “Do—Do that again…” he whimpers, one shaky hand reaching up to tug feebly at the bottom hem of Masi’s shirt.

“Do what? Esper, what’s wrong?”

“That!” Esper stresses out, tugging a little harder. His lips twitch and stretch into a wide smile, eyes crinkling at the corners even as the black tears still stream down his pale cheeks. “Talk!”

“Talk…? Esper, what happened to you? Why do you want us to talk?” Lusa asks, already kneeling down and using his sleeve to gently wipe the tears off Esper’s face.

“It was so quiet… so quiet… Please—“ the time traveler stammers, “Please, don’t stop— please…“

All the screaming suddenly makes sense. Esper was fighting off the silence the only way he could.

“Esper, come on up,” Lusa says, tugging his lithe body up. “Let’s go to bed, we’ll even tell you a story if that will help.”

Esper nods vigorously, letting himself be pulled up and tugged to the messed-up bed. His eyes sting with the onslaught of new tears, but this time they are from relief. All he can think is,

_Finally_.


	20. /ɒnˈwiː/

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s not even sure when he stopped caring about making his equations right. He just… stopped.

Esper catches himself spacing out when his computer starts beeping loudly because he’d been pressing one of the keys unintentionally. His tired eyes look at the jumbled mess of equations he’d been implementing into his Dynamo’s codes, and then he frowns, crumpling one of the many papers scattered across his worktable. He tosses it at the trash bin, already overflowing, and misses. The paper ball rolls across his floor until it stops by the wall, in the middle of a few more.

Esper stares at it, not realizing it stopped until he blinks a few times. He rubs his eyes until colors explode behind his eyelids and his eyes hurt.

He hops off the chair and treks out of his lab, dragging his feet as he goes. He makes himself a coffee and zones out again while adding sugar, resulting in half of the cup being sugar only. He simply pours the saturated mess into a bigger cup and adds more water, drinking it as he sits down at the table.

Somewhere along the line, Mastermind comes in to get his nighty dose of caffeine — wait, when did it become so late? How long had he been sitting there? The coffee in his grasp is only half finished and already cold as ice.

“Esper!”

He jolts up to find Mastermind leaning over the table, his face too close to Esper’s. When did he get so close? ”What?”

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes. What’re you zoning out for?” Mastermind crosses his arms and looks at him with that frown of his that betrays how worried he actually is.

Esper shrugs his shoulders. What _is_ he zoning out for? He tries to remember why he’d started feeling so lethargic, but his mind draws a blank.

“That aside,” Mastermind changes the subject when he sees that Esper won’t even comment on it. “Would you let me look at your equations?”

Esper scrunches his brows in confusion as he stands to pour the cold, yucky coffee down the drain and maybe make himself a new cup. “Why would you want to see them?” he asks quietly.

Mastermind visibly recoils at his tone. “I’ve been curious.”

“They’re completely wrong,” Esper says decidedly. Then, under his breath, he adds, “Probably.”

“You didn’t even test them?”

Esper thinks back to the heaps of torn and scrunched papers littering his whole room. “No. I didn’t need to.” Another shrug. “Not like any of my equations have ever been right.”

Mastermind startles him again by banging his palms against the surface of the table. Esper jolts, looking over his shoulder as his heart hammers in his chest. “Is that what you’ve been moping about?!”

Esper looks away from Mastermind’s intense stare — more of a glare, if he were being honest — and clutches the now-empty cup in his hands. Is it? He’s not sure. He’s not even sure when he stopped caring about making his equations right. He just… stopped.

“Maybe,” he mutters, pouring the steaming water into his cup and almost spilling it all over himself. He stirs the coffee absently, the spoon clanging against the ceramic loudly.

Again, Mastermind startles him with his words. “If your work isn’t right, you just have to work harder so it is!” he almost yells, clutching at the edge of the table so hard his knuckles go white.

Esper stares at him in silence, though his face betrays how much he doesn’t want to do that anymore. Weren’t all his failures up to now enough? Didn’t he mess up enough already? Something like that is easy for the other to say, since his work isn’t an absolute mess.

“You think so?!” Oh, had he said that out loud?

Next thing he knows, Mastermind is standing in front of him and raising a hand. He doesn’t even see the slap coming until the gloved palm connects with his cheek and his whole head twists to the side with the momentum. The sound echoes for a good few more seconds.

Esper looks at Mastermind, who looks about ready to spill tears. His hands shake by his sides and he his face is a strange mix of despair and anger. Esper’s chest aches when he sees it.

“We all made mistakes,” he says, voice shaking slightly, but considering everything, pretty even. “But you never gave up. You always kept trying, I don’t even know how many times you’re gone back, even before coming here, but you were always so excited about Mother… It’s painful to see you giving up.”

Esper’s gaze falls down to the floor. “But it’s pointless to try if you know you won’t succeed.”

“You don’t know that, though.”

“I failed each time. There’s almost no chance of finding the right timeline!”

“That’s because you only focus in the end goal! You keep overlooking all the successes along the way! Look at you! You perfected dimensional travel and teleportation! You can manipulate gravity into physical spheres! But you don’t care about any of that since you can’t finish a behemoth task that you set for yourself!” Mastermind jabs a finger at his chest, painfully hitting the moonstone wedged into Esper’s chest. “Your standards are too high! Don’t be so critikal of yourself.”

Esper just stares, flabberghasted, at his counterpart. He feels like their roles should be reversed, that he’s the one who should be on the verge of crying trying to keep the other in check. This scenario is too unfamiliar to him; he doesn’t know what to do, how to react. He feels a sob bubble in his throat, though, and soon his eyes start watering as well.

Mastermind’s words burn themselves into his brain and his chest swells with an emotion he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

Pride.

His shoulders shake as he starts crying, the tears rolling down his cheeks, fat and salty, and he reaches out for the other, pulling him close. He buries his face in Mastermind’s shoulder, his tears staining the other’s vest, but he doesn’t complain. “I’ll— I’ll show you the equations…” he mumbles between shaky breaths. “Just— Just stay with me like this, for a moment, Masi…”

Mastermind grumbles something him being an idiot — nothing new — but his hands come to wind around Esper’s trembling shoulders. In the end, they stand in the kitchen embracing for almost half an hour before retiring into Esper’s lab.

But at least the time traveler doesn’t feel quite as empty anymore.

The equations turn out incorrect.

He doesn’t mind. He’ll try again.


	21. A completely another level of filthy [SMUT]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Wow, that's dirty," Lusa remarks, though he has no qualms about turning around and presenting his backside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thigh fucking. that is all. thank you for your attention.

In all honesty, it's probably a good thing when Masi pulls away, since Lusa is long out of breath and his head is already starting to spin. That changes nothing about the fact that he wants the scientist's lips back against his immediately. Through half-lidded eyes, he looks up at his counterpart, taking in his equally flushed features and hazy eyes that scream desire at him.

He unconsciously licks his lips at the sight.

"Turn around," Mastermind quips, pulling away to rummage through the kitchen drawers. "And spread your legs."

"Wow, that's dirty," Lusa remarks, though he has no qualms about turning around and presenting his backside.

Masi is back behind him in a second, holding a bottle of oil in his hand. Lusa quirks an eyebrow as he looks over his shoulder.

"You know you can just go get the real lube from one of our rooms, right? Or you can call Esper to bring it, if you're _that_ lazy."

"Nah, he said he's busy with something," Mastermind says, deft fingers unbuttoning Lusa's pants and pulling them down in one fluid motion. He continues with the black boxers, letting them pool around the berserker's ankles.

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind joining," Lusa grins lopsidedly, but it doesn't have his normal teasing effect since his cheeks are flushed and his cock stands straight, simply begging for attention.

Mastermind leans over him, taking to peppering kisses and nibbles along the white expanse of Lusa's bare shoulders. "No, you're all mine right now," he mutters near the other's ear, reaching up to pull Lusa's earpiece out. He places it onto the counter a fair distance away, where it won't get damaged even accidentally. "I've wanted to try something, hold on."

Masi uncaps the bottle and pours the oil all over his palm. Lusa spreads his legs as far as the fabric around his ankles allows, but Mastermind's fingers don't start preparing him as he'd anticipated, instead slipping further down and stroking along his perineum.

He chokes out some sort of a confused noise. The oil runs down his thighs, wet and slippery, and he frowns at Masi even through the faint pleasure. "What are you doing, you're gonna get my pants all dirty."

"Then kick them away," Mastermind answers simply, fingers gliding across his sac and prompting a soft moan. Lusa, bracing himself on his forearms, steps out of the garments - a task that's too easy to be done with so much problems - and kicks them away, somewhere towards the table where it'd be easy to find them later. Mastermind's hand moves away and reaches over to stroke his arousal, pumping it languidly. "I'm gonna fuck your thighs."

Lusa snorts, peeking over his shoulder again. "You know how I said you're dirty? This is on completely another level of filthy."

Mastermind undoes his belt and pulls his pants down with just one hand, the other still pumping Lusa, even running the pad of his thumb along the sensitive head, smearing the translucent beads of precum gathered there. "Yet I don't hear you protesting."

"Why the fuck would I protest, that's hot as hell," Lusa says, grinding back shamelessly.

Mastermind grins to himself as he positions his hips, rubbing his hardness between Lusa's thighs. The berserker adjusts his stance, legs squeezed together as Masi starts thrusting, the oil making his movements smooth and quick.

"Oh fuck," Lusa mumbles, head hung low between his arms as he watches Masi's cock gliding between his thighs, rubbing along the underside of his ball. "That's really hot."

Mastermind presses his index finger against his slit and Lusa squeezes his eyes closed with a guttular moan. Mastermind sets a quick pace, chest pressed against Lusa's back, face so close he can clearly hear all the groans and moans spilling from his counterpart's lips.

The hand pumping him even squeezes his head with every pump. Lusa can't help but start rocking into the touch, breath hitching and a line of drool rolling down his chin as Masi matches his strokes with his thrusts. He lays his head against his hands, feeling them trembling. "Ohh, fuck…"

The scientist's sinful fingers start paying extra attention to the weeping head of his arousal, the other one gripping Lusa's hip hard enough to bruise. "Right there," Lusa moans, like Masi didn't already know that.

Mastermind groans, losing his tempo as pleasure starts to pool in his abdomen and spread through him like liquid fire. Lusa's wanton moans do absolutely nothing to stop it. "Fuck-" he grinds out, latching his lips to Lusa's shoulder and leaving behind a plethora of blooming, vivid red marks.

Lusa's hips jerk wildly as the pleasure takes over him, a moan of Masi's name spilling from his kiss-swollen lips as he cums, white splattering against the other's hand and the counter.

He has just about enough coherency left to squeeze his thighs together, forcing a loud groan from Mastermind.

Masi's hips stutter as he cums, gritting his teeth through a drawn-out moan. They both catch their breath, sweaty bodies still sticking together as they come down from their highs.

The first one to speak is Lusa, though he has to cough a few times to clear his windpipe. "I'm not cleaning this up."

Masi laughs, pressing a kiss to the marked shoulder. "That's fair. It was my idea, after all."


	22. A Jar - or a hundred - of Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What're you doing?"
> 
> "Paper stars. Aisha taught me how to make these. Apparently if you make a whole jar of them, you can make a wish and it will come true."

When Lusa comes back from Sander, he finds Esper sitting in the living room, hands busy with something while Mr. Sparkle lounges around in front of the couch, head rested on its giant paws and snoring loudly. Mastermind is probably testing out some new upgrades, since he can hear faint explosions coming from the outside.

"What're you doing?" he asks, leaning over the couch behind Esper and chuckling when the time traveler jumps in surprise.

"Lusa! You're back!" Esper says, looking back and smiling at him. Whatever he'd been doing had fallen from his hands and scattered across the floor.

"Yup. I met Glave," the berserker says, face scrunching at the mention of the time and space administrator. "He uh… He says 'hello'." From Lusa's face, it's more than obvious that Glave said much more than that, but Esper refrains from asking.

"I should visit him sometime," Esper muses quietly, reaching down to pick up whatever it was that he'd dropped. Lusa sees that it's a handful of small and colorful paper strips.

"What're you doing?" Lusa asks again when Esper starts folding one of them, fingers going through the motions fluidly, like he'd done it a thousand times before.

"Paper stars," Esper answers, folding a corner and holding the finished star up for Lusa to see. "Aisha taught me how to make these. Apparently if you make a whole jar of them, you can make a wish and it will come true."

Lusa raises an eyebrow. "That's just bullshit."

* * *

There are jars everywhere. And by everywhere, he means everywhere.

There're two placed on his desk, two sitting on the living room table, at least a dozen scattered across the kitchen counters, a few sitting in everyone's rooms, he even saw a few outside, a pair sitting on the washing machine, and, of course, one in Lusa's hands.

The berserker is throwing the small yellow stars at him, finding it absolutely hilarious. The couch and the ground around them is already littered with them, and Mastermind's eye twitches unconsciously.

"Would you stop?!" he hisses at Lusa, slapping the next star thrown at him from midair.

Lusa chuckles, throws one last star before deeming it far too dangerous to continue. He sets the jar onto the table and leans back on the couch.

"What's the point of these?" Lusa grumbles. "Esper is just gonna disappoint himself by believing in this bullshit."

Mastermind frowns. "Did he say what he wants from these?"

"Nah, said he doesn't remember. Said he wrote it down, but lost the papers. How like him…"

Mastermind toys with one star, unwinding it and folding it again, only to do it time and again. "Is he still making them?"

Lusa shrugs. "No idea. But we're clean out of jars. He literally can't make any more unless he goes and buys new jars."

"I wouldn't put it past him."

"Nah, he's been in his room all day. He's working on the right coordinates for the past again."

"I see… Still, these are really annoying. Can't he just store them in a box somewhere?"

* * *

Esper slinks his way into Mastermind's lab quietly, so much, in fact, that he almost manages to startle the scientist. Almost.

"Masi," he says instead of a greeting, seating himself on the edge of the worktable. "How did your experiment yesterday go?"

"Oh yeah, it went well," Mastermind nods, thinking back to the spot-on hits of his fully-renewed drones. "Why?"

Esper giggles quietly, shaking his head. "No reason," he says, his tone indicating otherwise. "Let me just take this," he mutters, leaning over the mess of uncategorized research notes to take the jar of blue stars from the table.

In all honesty, Mastermind had already gotten used to the pair of them sitting there, the glow of his monitors illuminating them and making them change colors from a soft purple all the way to midnight black. Why is Esper taking it away, then, if he had been so vehement about having them all over the place?

The time traveler hops off the table and instead leans down to kiss his counterpart, their lips sliding against each other's perfectly. When he pulls away, Esper is smiling widely.

He grabs the other jar and tucks it under his arm. “And this one.”

And without any further explanation, he vanishes from the lab as soon as he had come in, leaving the inventor at a complete loss of what had just taken place.

* * *

The next day he bumps into Lusa in the kitchen, the berserker making himself one of his disgusting smoothies. Though, this gives him the perfect opportunity to ask about Esper’s behaviour.

The jars are progressively disappearing from the building, one after another, and he’d like to know why.

“Lusa? Do you know why Esper started taking the jars away?” he asks, stirring his freshly made coffee absently, the dark liquid swirling in endless circles as he gazed into its surface.

Lusa gulps down his — what did he use this time? tomatoes? Mastermind can’t help but recoil at the mere notion — drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah, I asked him last night. He said that he’s putting away the jars that have already been fullfilled, whatever that means.” He shrugs, placing his glass into the sink and going to do whatever it was that he’d planned for today.

Mastermind stays in the kitchen a bit longer, thinking. The coffee gradually cools in his hands even as he keeps stirring it, staring off at the blank wall.

‘Fullfilled’, huh?

He thinks back to when Esper barged into his lab, asking about his experiment and then kissing him, all out of the blue. Then he thinks to the other times he’d seen Esper taking the jars away — the time when he took one after making sure Mr. Midnight didn’t eat any more valuable papers; the time when he took one after surprising Lusa with a kiss; the time when he took one after Lusa surprised him with a kiss; the time when…

Yeah, okay, he’s starting to see a pattern here.

Why would Esper wish for stupid things like that, though?

* * *

“What did that one do?”

Esper looks from the jar of pink stars in his hands up at Mastermind, smiling and looking a little lost in his thoughts. “That you and Lusa don’t fight today,” he replies, catching himself as the words leave his mouth. His cheeks turn a faint shade of pink and he looks away flustered.

Mastermind smirks, remembering Lusa’s words. Nah, said he doesn't remember. Said he wrote it down, but lost the papers.

Yeah, sure. Like Esper’d ever do something like that.

“The night is still young, who knows what’ll happen,” he says instead, eyes flickering to the hall where the berserker had disappeared a little while ago, to go take a shower. “What else did you wish for?”

Esper refuses to meet his eyes. "Nothing!"

Mastermind gets an idea, smiling coyly to himself as he moves to the other, pressing a kiss to his forehead and then gradually down his cheek until he finally kisses his lips.

They stay like that for a few long minutes, re-exploring each other's mouth with their tongues and enjoying the feeling of their lips fitting.

Mastermind pulls away and takes a sip of his coffee again while Esper's face flushes deeply and he takes another jar from the table, scurrying away with them.

Mastermind smiles, licking his lips of both the coffee and Esper's taste.

He can't wait to see what else the time traveler wished for.


	23. More than before [SMUT]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mmn, that’s tight,” Lusa groans, not relenting in his pace in the slightest. In fact, it looks like he bounces the other faster, hips snapping up sharply.
> 
> “It’ll be even more so,” Esper comments offhandedly, carefully adding another finger.

He’s not quite sure why he had agreed to this in the first place. Sure, he had done a lot of stupid things, and this is also starting to seem like a stupid thing, but hey, Lusa and Esper both looked so excited and he couldn’t really bring himself to say no and shatter their positivity.

So, here he is, on his knees on their giant bed — which is, in reality, just all their beds pushed together — while Esper ties a soft strip of silk over his eyes and Lusa checks the tightness of the ropes binding his arms behind his back.

With the way Lusa had covered his forearms with more soft silk before tying the rope, he would even bet they’d been planning this for some time. Esper’s hands pull away after securing a knot behind his head.

“Can you see anything?” he asks. A weak gust of air tells Mastermind he is probably waving a hand in front of his face.

He can’t see it, though, only darkness fills his vision. “No.”

“Okay, good. Now, what’s the safeword?”

“‘Red’, we’ve been over this,” he replies, somewhat irritated. A little bit more and he’ll really start to doubt himself. “Can you just— start already?”

Lusa chuckles behind him, but then they both pull away and he’s suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of abandonement, no matter how stupid he tells himself that is. His eyes dart underneath the blindfold, vainly trying to find out where the others are and what they are going to do.

Lusa and Esper exchange a matching set of smiles — bordering on smirks, really — over the scientist’s shoulder. Lusa tugs at the ribbon holding Mastermind’s ponytail up and pulls it out, letting the white hair fall down freely.

A shudder goes through the inventor and he cranes his head as if he could see the berserker. “What are you doing?”

Lusa presses a finger against his lips, effectively shutting him up. “You know,” he says, intentionally so close to Masi’s ear, just so he could enjoy the smaller tremors of his body. “I wanted to gag you, as well. Esper was against it.”

Said time traveler presses himself against Mastermind’s front, hands deftly unbuttoning and unzipping his pants, one of the last few articles of clothes he still has on. Esper hums. “Your voice is lovely, though. I like hearing your moans.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lusa nods, moving even closer so he could start nipping at the other’s bare shoulder, teeth digging in enough to leave a mark, but not enough to pierce the skin. “But you shouldn’t speak, or I really will gag you. For once if your life, I want you to listen to us.”

Something rustles and then a strip of fabric — probably more silk — ghosts over Mastermind’s back. He can’t stop himself from gasping, but grits his teeth tightly. He clenches and unclenches his fists, nails digging into his palms. Esper tugs on his pants.

“Lusa, help me.”

The berserker grabs ahold of Mastermind’s hips and lifts him off the covers for a moment. The time traveler pulls his pants down and then his boxers follow. He can hear them being thrown onto the ground. The Lusa lets go of him and instead moves a hand to languidly stroke his cock.

At the warm touch, Mastermind arches his back, head thrown back into Lusa’s shoulder as he moans out loudly.

“That feel good?” Lusa asks teasingly, tongue peeking out to lick the shell of the scientist’s ear. “You should see yourself, you’re a picture of beauty.”

Mastermind’s face heats up and he wants to tell Lusa to shut up, but he stops himself. The words make him feel warm, and no, it’s not only because of Lusa’s torturously even pace of pumping him.

“You’re so pretty. Even your blush is cute,” Lusa keeps muttering into his ear, low and husky, and Mastermind keeps  _shivering, jerking, moving_. It’s absolutely ridiculous how sentisive his body is when he’s left without his sight.

Esper laughs, a little closer than Mastermind realized. “Don’t overdo it,” he says, though he grins at the berserker nonetheless. “We’re just getting started, after all.”

His fingers, lathered in lube Mastermind doesn’t remember him getting, circle around his entrance and when one slips inside, he jerks forward. “Khh—!” he keens, squeezing his eyes shut. It doesn’t make a difference, in all honesty.

“You okay there?” Esper asks, stopping his hand as he watches Mastermind’s chest heave up and down with stuttering breaths. “Color?”

“G-Green,” Masi replies, after a short string of whines.

Esper keep on, then, pushing the finger inside all the way. The lube drips from his hand and down the inventor’s crease and pools on the sheets that will absolutely have to be changed right after they are done. It feels obscene, even moreso than any other time.

Esper adds another finger, his nails scraping against the inner walls just right to make Mastermind whine deep in his throat. He scissors them, curls them, precise and practiced movements loosening up the flesh.

Coupled with Lusa’s hand still stroking him, though not even half as firmly as before, he’s caught between two exquisite pleasures and nothing to do about it.

Esper adds another finger, and then his pinky as well. He keeps a close look on Mastermind’s face, but pumps them in and out fluidly, occasionally curling them and running the pads of them against the spot that has the other’s back arching and his voice breaking with the volume of his moans.

There’s no way to know how long this goes on, just that it’s long enough for Lusa to completely cover one of his shoulders in hickies and bites. Mastermind is shaking between them, a near constant stream of filthy noises coming from his lips, swollen from biting them.

Finally, Esper deems it enough — wait, is that a good thing? Mastermind whines as the fingers leave him, gulping down air in shaky breaths. Lusa’s hand also ceases his ministration and instead grips onto his hip.

“Up you go,” Lusa chuckles, pulling his up with ease. Mastermind would normally object to being manhandled like that, but he doesn’t have it in him this time. He allows the berserker to position him in his lap, feels the other’s arousal against his backside.

Esper’s hand returns, but it only passes by his thighs, fingers instead curling around Lusa’s cock and lathering it in lube, from the sounds of it. Lusa grunts, hips jerking forward a little into the touch.

The time traveler even leads the arousal into the desired position, so Lusa can just pull his hips down and enter him easily. Through his moan, he almost misses Lusa’s heated groan, so close to his ear he can almost hear it resonate within his skull.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” Lusa whispers, voice heavy with arousal. His fingers dig into his hips hard enough to leave marks, he’s sure, but he doesn’t mind. “So fucking hot inside and so, so good…”

Mastermind keeps trembling, the pressure from the stretch gradually fading while Lusa enjoys being buried balls deep inside of him. He cranes his head back. “Lusa—”

“No talking,” Lusa cuts him off immediately, “Not unless it’s the safeword. Remember?”

Mastermind wants to retort, but then Lusa rolls his hips and his mind is wiped blank, nothing but the fire coursing through his veins left. He moans, unconsciously pushing back, body taunt as a bow as it aches again.

Lusa sets a steady pace, hands helping to move Mastermind along with the thrusts. The inventor can do nothing else than moan out, desperately clenching his fists as waves of pleasure crash against him.

Just when he thinks it’s too hard, too fast, too  _much_ , Esper curls a hand around him, squeezing tightly around the base.

“You’re close,” he says, more of a statement than anything else. An observation.

Mastermind glares at the spot where he thinks Esper is sitting, but it’s absolutely ineffective with the blindfold and the crimson all over his cheeks.

Esper’s other hand glides along his trembling thigh and prods gently at his entrance again. “What’re—” Mastermind has to grit his teeth as the index slips inside alongside Lusa. “Hnn!!”

“Mmn, that’s tight,” Lusa groans, not relenting in his pace in the slightest. In fact, it looks like he bounces the other faster, hips snapping up sharply.

“It’ll be even more so,” Esper comments offhandedly, carefully adding another finger.

Mastermind leans forward, a strained sound coming out of his throat between the array of pants and whines.

“Good job,” Esper mutters, leaning in to pepper featherlight kisses along his jaw. “You’re taking them so well, I’m so proud.”

While the inventor’s mind reels from the praise, he adds another finger, making sure his insides are slick and loose enough. Again, Esper and Lusa exchange a mischievious look over their bound counterpart’s shoulder.

“Can you hold his legs?” Esper asks and Lusa’s hands leave Mastermind’s hips — where prominent red marks bloom already — in order to grasp his thighs and pull them apart even more.

“That good?”

“Yeah.”

Lusa’s fingers on his skin feel so hot, too hot, like they are burning him. He breathes deeply, guessing what Esper wants to do but still unsure. Esper nestles between his spread legs, the bed creaking underneath them.

Mastermind stiffles a whine when Esper starts to press inside alongside Lusa, who’s not moving, for once. The stretch burns slightly, but Esper made sure he was sufficiently prepared. He goes agonizingly slowly, but finally, after what feels like an eternity, he’s buried to the hilt as well.

Mastermind lets out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

“Color?” Esper asks, though his voice is strained.

After a few long breaths, when it doesn’t feel like the pressure is suffocating him, he finally answers. “Gree—n.”

Nothing, though, could’ve prepared him for this, no amount of fingers. The two start moving in tandem, one pulling out whilst the other presses in, only to repeat this in the other way. He keens, head thrown back and spine arched so much that it looks almost painful.

“You’re so good, hnn, so fucking good,” Lusa mumbles from behind. The words almost go over the inventor’s head, as he’s so wrapped up in all the heat.

“Shit—” Esper leans down over him, so close that he can feel his breath fanning over his face. “Masi, are you— Are you crying?”

Now that the time traveler had mentioned it, Mastermind can feel the cloth obscuring his eyes dampen with tears that keep springing into his eyes. He bucks up sharply as Esper thrusts back in, moaning high-pitchedly.

“Shit—” Esper reaches up, fingers running through his bouncing strands of hair to find the bow he had tied in place of a knot. He yanks it and pulls the cloth away.

Masi has to blink for a long moment until his eyes readjust to the onslaught of light. His eyes are red rimmed and tears still leak out, just like the drool rolling down the corner of his mouth.

“You’re beautiful,” Lusa muses, voicing both their thoughts.

Esper takes that exact moment to touch his arousal again, fisting the weeping head and running the pad of his thumb over the slit. Mastermind sobs at the stimulus, already overwhelmed as it were.

He  _writhes_ , body trying to move away while simultaneously yearning for more. “Hnn— Ah! Ah, ah, ah!” He moans unabashedly, all shreds all pride long forgotten.

Taking pity on him — or is he? — Esper starts to stroke him in time with their thrusts. They are all sweaty and sticking together, but it feels so fucking good. Mastermind can’t think anymore, not that he could for a while now.

He damn near sobs as he finally comes, trembling tremendously in Lusa’s hold while Esper keeps stroking him though the whole orgasm, until he really is crying from the oversensitiveness.

His counterparts apparently learned telepathy, because they both bite down on his shoulders as they come too, almost completely in sync. He feels warm liquid dripping down his left side, looks to see that Lusa bit him a little too hard, but even that he forgives in his euphoric state.

His body still shakes lightly even after he comes down from the high, and he winces as the berserker gently pulls him off of them.

“Ow,” he hisses, if only to make them feel a bit bad. Lusa grabs a small knife from the bedside table and simply cuts the rope away, unrolling the soft silk away to free Mastermind’s arms. They flop uselessly by his sides, the position they have been in making them fully numb.

Lusa lays him on the other bed after that, far away from the completely soaked covers.

“You okay?” he asks, leaning over him to grab a glass of water and a rag from the table again. He starts cleaning the mess from Mastermind’s stomach, each swipe of the rag gentle.

The inventor winces slightly when he feels cum leak out and dribble down his thigh. “Fine,” he says. “That was… more than I expected.”

Esper nestles behind him, lanky arms winding around him and pulling him back against the time traveler’s chest. His crystal feels cold and soothing on Mastermind’s heated skin and he gladly welcomes the sensation. “Sorry, we overdid it a little.”

Lusa snorts. “Define ‘little’. He looks fucking wrecked.”

And it’s true, Mastermind’s whole upper torso is littered with countless marks, teeth intents and hickies, fingers imprinted on his hips and thighs and his hair a mess that he will no doubt complain for a long time in the morning.

“But y’know what?” he mutters. He closes his eyes and is enveloped by gentle darkness, not unlike the one he was kept in a while ago. “It was pretty worth it.”


	24. Fixing the past, one moment at a time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m you, from the future,” he says, stepping back to give Time his personal space.
> 
> The tracer looks up at him with wide eyes. “What? That's…”
> 
> “Impossible? Nope.”

The portal crackles out of existence, leaving behind only a faint trace of purple hanging in the air.

Esper forces down a yawn, having spent a long time running through timelines and doing a bunch of stuff. Including walking Mr. Sparkle, who stands behind him, lazily swaying his tail as he observes their surroundings.

Esper turns to the door only to find a set of Dynamos poised at his face, crackling with energy.

“God, did I overshoot it again?” he mutters to himself. He told himself he wouldn’t do calculations while sleep-deprived, but when was the last time he listened to himself anyway?

“Who are you?” an Add asks, standing by the messy table— wait a second.

Esper looks around, wide eyes blinking at the sight as the black fades from them gradually.

He focuses on this timeline’s Add.

Messy hair, pale complexion and, of course, an eye patch over his contacted eye.

“Me?” he asks, sure he’s gaping at this point.

But no, that truly is him, really _him_ , down to the last detail of the outfit and the moonstone crystal hanging in his neck. It’s still swinging on its dark strap, not yet melted and mended to his chest.

“Time?”

The Add looks wary of him - as he should, after all, Esper had done uncountable amount of chaos and destruction all over the place. Plus, there’s a demonic cat sitting right behind him.

“Who are you? What’re you doing here?” Time asks, never commanding his Dynamo to leave the formation.

Slowly, Esper crosses the room ad stands in front of the shorter boy. Seeing himself, how he was back then, makes something ache deep within him.

Time doesn’t have a chance to react before Esper wraps his arms around him and squeezes him in a tight hug. It’s the older that trembles a little.

“I’m you, from the future,” he says, stepping back to give Time his personal space.

The tracer looks up at him with wide eyes. “What? That's…”

“Impossible? Nope.”

“So that means… That means I did it! I can time travel, right?!”

Esper’s chest aches at how happy Time looks and he smiles widely, nodding.

“Oh, Time…”

Sometimes, during sleepless nights when he laid awake in his bed, tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling, he thought about what he would say to his younger self given the option. He thought a summary of his codes, some base equations and some tips on handling the Dynamo would do fine, but now that he’s standing in front of himself, he realizes none of those matter. None would help him as much as some other things.

He reaches out, ruffles the tracer’s hair, pulls the eye patch down. His smile never loses the warm undertone, even as he stares at the bottomless dark of Time’s black sclera.

Time flinches, looks away guiltily, but Esper just strokes his cheek gently, coaxing him to look back.

“It will get better,” he says softly. “So much better. You will meet someone special. You will meet yourself, and they will become a part of your life. I promise, the pain will go away.”

He pulls the boy into a hug again, Time’s shoulders shaking. He smothers his sad grimace into Esper’s jacket, surprised himself at how tightly he clings to all the words his future self says. He has so many questions, wants so many answers, but the warmth, the reassurance radiating from him is much better than any answer he could get from anyone.

Tears spring to his eyes and he turns his head sideways to avoid staining Esper’s jacket with his black tears. The time traveler pulls him closer, against his thin chest, and Time breaks down, hurrying his face and smothering a wail into the fabric.

“R-really?”

It should be embarrassing how badly he craved hearing words like that, something reassuring and promising. But it isn’t, because this is him, this is him, he knows what happened, he knows how he’s feeling, he knows that it will change.

That is… such a relief, Time has to smother another sob.

“I promise,” Esper repeats. “Everything will be fine. You will have fun. You will be loved.”

Esper presses a kiss to the crown of Time’s head. “You are loved. It’s just hard to see yet.”

He holds Time until the boy’s crying subsides, until the tracer pulls away and wipes the mess off his face with a shaky smile. “Can I-? Can I ask something?”

Esper guides him to the chair and, just like he’d learned so long ago, gets a tall glass of water for the boy. “Here,” he says, passing it to his hands. A headache is the last thing Time needs.

Esper hops onto the table and waits patiently for the boy to drink his water. His drowsiness is completely gone and he feels strangely warm inside. “Ask me anything.”

“What is that?”

He expects Time to ask about his codes, maybe whether he’d gotten Eve’s, or something like that. ‘Why is the moonstone in your chest?!’ or 'How did you construct those Dynamos?’

So when the boy points at Mr. Sparkle, he is rightfully confused.

“Oh, uh… That’s Mr. Sparkle. I took him along today since he was getting antsy of sitting inside.”

“Is that… Your pet?”

“Well… Yes.”

“That’s so interesting! Where’d you get him? What’s he like? Why did you call him 'Mr. Sparkle’? Is he a demon? Can I pet him?”

Time barrages him with questions, his eyes - both of them - sparkling with excitement, with interest.

Esper smiles. He knows Lusa and Masi are probably waiting for him to get back home but… Well, he wants to give Time the answers.

There was no one for him back then, so he will do his best to make Time’s life easier. While he beckons Mr. Sparkle closer with a wave, he absently wonders if maybe he could find Arc and Psych as well.

Maybe the tracers wouldn’t have to fight so much at first if they got the tiny push in the right direction.

Esper grins, patting one of Mr. Sparkle’s giant ears. Time opens his mouth a tiny fraction, hands half-reaching out. He looks cute.

“Of course you can pet him.”


	25. First Data

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, it could even be just the atmosphere itself. Warm and comforting, it isn’t often that their household is as peaceful and calm as this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas~!

“Masi! Lusa! Wake up!”

The first thing Mastermind hears when he wakes up is Esper whisper yelling at them. When he blearily opens his eyes, Esper’s face obstructs more than eighty percent of his vision. And most of his face is a wide smile at the moment.

“Esper,” he groans, rolling over and  shushing his face further into the pillow. He can feel Lusa do the exact same, the berserker pressing himself closer with a quiet grumble. “Not yet.”

Esper sits on the blanket, all over their legs. They’re lucky he’s so light, or it would’ve hurt.

“Come on! It’s Christmas!” Esper says, unrelenting as he shakes them.

Finally they give in, Lusa first. He sits up, reaching up to tug Esper forward against his chest. His hands hover over the time traveler’s hips for all of a second before he grins sleepily at Masi and starts up an unrelenting tickle fest.

Esper doubles over in laughter, kicking around furiously in hopes of getting Lusa to let him go. No such luck; the berserker keeps tickling him until he can long not breathe and there are tears in his eyes and his chest and sides hurt from all the forced laughter.

Only then does Lusa let him go.

Their day is… not usual, though absolutely not something that warrants the title _special_. It’s not like they’ve ever spent a Christmas together before, and it’s not like they even celebrated it at all beforehand. Why would they, though? There was no way to tell the time date in the library, and after that, there was always work to do.

So they’re all at a loss of what to do, honestly.

Lusa takes it upon himself to make them all chocolate, instead of their usual morning dose of coffee. He adds a sprinkle of the cinnamon spice to them, making them smell even more tantalizing. He hands the kitty-eared mugs to the others and they settle in the living room, a tangle of limbs on the sofa.

They do even this from time to time, when there _is_ time, when the work isn’t as plentiful and they’re not feeling so manic. Though, this time, it does feel different.

Maybe it is the small pine tree standing in one of the corners, the branches decorated with a wide array of shiny ornaments that Esper went and bought earlier that week. (They decorated it together; maybe that’s why one part’s only filled with one type of decorations while there’s a giant gap on another side. Lusa took Masi onto his shoulders so the scientist could put the golden star on the very top.)

Or maybe it is the smell of apples and cinnamon wafting through the air from the kitchen. Ciel had visited yesterday and brought them a pie with a smile that told them they were absolutely missing some of the festive cheer. (It took a long argument for them not to eat it right away. They’re still waiting for the ‘right time’.)

Or, it could even be just the atmosphere itself. Warm and comforting, it isn’t often that their household is as peaceful and calm as this.

They don’t have anything to compare it to — it’s been so long, they don’t even remember how Mother celebrated Christmas — but that is fine, Esper thinks. It just means they’ll have to gather their own data.

Which is why he reaches a hand out and opens a small portal to pull out two boxes, one after another. They’re wrapped in purple, sprarkling paper, though it is obvious it had been many times adjusted. Bows hide the worst spots, a white and a pink one.

He hands one to each of the others and, sipping his chocolate, whispers, “Merry Christmas.”

Masi and Lusa seem at a loss for a moment — didn’t they expect anything? — but then they both tear into the boxes, Masi just a little more sophisticadedly.

Lusa unpacks a new pair of black headphones and his face splits into a wide grin. “Aw, thanks Esper, I needed new ones!”

Masi finds a box of his favorite coffee. It’s the one he claims to have the biggest amount of caffeine in it, and they only sell it in Sander. He also smiles. “Thanks, I was running out.”

Lusa follows suit and resches between the cushions. He pulls out two horrendously-wrapped packages and hands them over with a giant smile.

They’re… sweaters. Masi’s is white, with red snowflake pattern going around and with a red turtleneck to boot. Esper’s is all red and has a candy cane on the front. It’s even slightly loose, just the way he likes it.

Lusa vehemently refuses to tell them where they’re from, but that’s fine. They both plan on wearing them for like two weeks straight.

Mastermind looks away when they turn to him almost expectantly. His cheeks color a faint shade of pink and he points up softly. Lusa and Esper both crane their heads back to see a small piece of mistletoe taped to the ceiling.

Lusa howls in laughter, only resulting in deepening Masi’s blush.

“I didn’t know what to get you!” he defends himself. “And I saw Elesis buying some of this, so I thought…”

He’s cut off by the other’s leaning over, almost fighting to get to kiss him first, though it matters little when they end up kissing all over the place.

So they had no data to compare this experience with. Even still, they thought it was a great. And the day had only just started.


	26. A development

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lusa turns to him, the faint, artificial light of the night lamps illuminating his deep scowl. “Esper’s not answering, again,” he grits through his teeth.
> 
> There’s so much emphasis on the word ‘again’, Mastermind can’t help but think back to the previous times Esper had done this. Which, now that he recollects them, there have been a lot of.
> 
> “And? That’s normal.”
> 
> “No, that’s not fucking normal,” Lusa hisses.

When Mastermind leaves his room to get a refill of his coffee, it’s about three in the morning. Actually, probably later than that, since he isn’t quite sure how long ago he’d checked the time.

So it’s a surprise so see Lusa standing in the hallway in front of Esper’s room. “What are you doing here, at this hour?” he asks, frowning at the berserker.

Lusa turns to him, the faint, artificial light of the night lamps illuminating his deep scowl. “Esper’s not answering, again,” he grits through his teeth.

There’s so much emphasis on the word ‘again’, Mastermind can’t help but think back to the previous times Esper had done this. Which, now that he recollects them, there have been a lot of.

“And? That’s normal.”

“No, that’s not fucking normal,” Lusa hisses. Sometimes Mastermind forgets that the two had spent more time together that he had. “I’m gonna bust the door.”

“Don’t-”

Mastermind sighs, raising his empty hand up to his head to rub at his temple. He wouldn’t be able to talk Lusa out of it even if he had the energy to try.

Lusa rams the door with his shoulder, so hard that it echoes for a good minute or two. The hinges give way under his strength and and he holds the door from falling to the ground.

“Great,” Mastermind sighs again. “You’re repairing that.”

“Esper!” Lusa hisses, completely ignoring that the scientist even said something while he barges into the room.

It’s just as messy as usual, countless papers with equations and hasty, chicken-scrawled notes laying on every available surface. Esper’s computer is whirring quietly, stuck in sleeping mode.

The time traveler himself is sprawled all over the messy table, almost falling out of his chair in that position. He doesn’t even stir at the whole commotion, a clear testament to how tired he must’ve been to pass out like this.

“See, it’s fine,” Mastermind waves a hand, motioning Lusa to leave with him.

“It’s not fine,” Lusa repeats. He shoots Mastermind a glare so cold that if it could kill, he’d be long gone. “He doesn’t usually overwork himself like this. That’s your forte.”

Before Mastermind could retort with a suitable comeback, Lusa picks their sleeping counterpart up. He’s careful not to jostle him, though Mastermind is sure he wouldn’t even notice in this state.

He watches as the berserker brings him to the bed, lays him down, and then tucks him in. Something inside him aches, but he’s not sure what it is. He also feels faintly envious.

Of Esper? Or is it Lusa?

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Lusa says, snapping him out of his spiraling thoughts. “And you too. Go the fuck to sleep, it’s late.”

Mastermind finds himself following the not-quite-order without a protest, though he wonders if Lusa would tuck him in as well if he didn’t.

Bah, what a ridiculous thought.

* * *

Esper trudges out of his room a little after ten, just as Mastermind pours water into his coffee. He has dark circles under his eyes and he’s so slouched it looks like he’ll fall over at any moment. It’s so unusual to see him be slouched forward, though.

Mastermind makes another cup of coffee on instinct and passes it over.

Its takes a moment for Esper to register the mug that’s in his hands now, and though he doesn’t react, he probably burns himself.

“Why are you worsening your sleeping schedule?” Mastermind asks, jumping straight to the core of the problem. Lusa had said he’d keep an eye on the time traveler, but since he’d gone to do something into the city of Velder, that is a little more than impossible. Thankfully, Mastermind is prepared to substitute for the babysitter.

Esper looks at him, but only for a second before he averts his eyes sharply. He chugs the scalding coffee and Mastermind scoffs.

“Esper,” he says, tone stern. “Why. Are you. Overworking. Yourself. Again.”

The time traveler flinches and Mastermind almost, almost feels sorry for his harsh tone. Esper still refuses to meet his eyes.

“I just… want my family back,” Esper finally mutters, quietly.

Mastermind’s angry visage falls off to be replaced by a sad frown. He won’t admit so, but hearing that makes his chest ache.

“Aren’t we a family now?”

Esper cocks his head at him, looking with a dumbfounded expression. Mastermind can quite literally see when the cogs fall into place in his head and the meaning of his words - which he doesn’t regret in the slightest - registers.

“You…” Esper sniffs, tears gathered in his eyes. His small shoulders shake, but he doesn’t start actually crying. Not yet, at least. “You really mean that…?”

“Yeah.”

It feels so out of place for him to say something like that, but it also feels good and… freeing, maybe? All that aside, it paints a giant smile on Esper’s face, and that’s really all he’d wanted.

Esper doesn’t answer, but when Lusa comes back by the nightfall, he retires along with him.

That’s a development, at least. A positive one, for once.


	27. A better start this time around (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t worry, we’ll be right back.”
> 
> Funny, hasn’t he already said that today?

“Hey, Esper!”

Said time traveler turns from his portal, ready to get him to where he wants to go. Mr. Sparkle makes some deep, guttular sound that Esper interprets as growling. Guess he also can’t wait to go.

“Are you leaving again?” Lusa asks, smiling at him from the doorway. After all this time spent together, Esper is able to discern the miniscule details to the smile. Like the way he’s gritting his teeth behind his lips, or the way his brows twitch a little. He’s worried, and he doesn’t want Esper to leave again.

“Yeah,” Esper replies, offering a smile on his own. A genuine, warm one. “Don’t worry, we’ll be right back,” he promises.

“Mhm, I’ll tell Masi.” Lusa crosses the room to place a small peck on his lips. Esper smiles wider, his lips tingling even after Lusa pulls away. “Be careful.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

Lusa leaves with a wave, disappearing down the corridor, presumably to go to the scientist’s lab. Esper stares after him for a moment longer, but Mr. Sparkle growls again.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re going,” he mutters, turning back and crossing the portal. The demonic cat follows close behind him.

They emerge in a similar-looking room, but there is a grand lack of all the familiar things that should be there; like Lusa’s vest haphazardly thrown over the armchair, or Masi’s holo-projectors strewn all around the place.

Then again, there is no Lusa or Masi to leave those things around. Yet, anyway.

“Esper…?”

The time traveler smiles, turning towards the sound of the voice. Time is sitting on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest — and Esper can’t help remembering he does that too, so often… the boy is scared, isn’t he? — and fingers anxiously twirling around a vial of his medicine.

“You came…”

Esper hates this, this whole feeling he gets when he’s around Time. It makes him realize exactly how bad everything is — was — and how fucked-up they truly are. He doesn’t want Time to feel like him, he wants Time to be happy instead.

“Yeah, I promised, didn’t I?” he says. His smile, although forced onto his face, is still genuine. Time’s shoulders relax slightly, falling down.

“I can either get them myself, or you can come with me,” Esper explains, nodding his chin at the still-open portal. “I can’t guarantee we’ll find them right away, so maybe you should stay here. No need to hurt yourself in the continuum.”

Time’s fingers tighten around the vial and Esper knows the answer right away. He doesn’t blame the tracer.

“I’ll stay.”

“Alright.” He nods, and then motions Mr. Sparkle to take a seat by Time. The demon cat always seems to understand him, so he does as Esper wishes and sprawls himself over the couch, resting his head in Time’s lap. “Don’t worry, we’ll be right back.”

Funny, hasn’t he already said that today?

With that, the older of them crosses through the portal. It closes when he’s gone, and Time stares at the air where it had just been, purple and pink sparks still dancing in the light.

He starts absently petting Mr. Sparkle’s head, careful of his horns. The demonic cat blinks slowly, a low and loud rumble bubbling from within him. Time’s lips tug up and he rubs behind his twitching ears, only prompting more purring.

“You’re really cute, you know that?” he mutters. The cat’s eyes fixate on him for a moment before Mr. Sparkle blinks again. Time chuckles.

He isn’t sure how long Esper is gone — he makes a point not to look at the clocks, knowing it’d only give him more anxiety. There’s something exciting about meeting himself, isn’t there? Exciting, but still he’s scared.

What if they don’t like him? Esper’s words from before revive in his mind.

You will meet yourself, and they will become a part of your life.

Ah, great, now he’s giving the anxiety to himself. He frowns and gently stands up to make himself a cup of coffee. Nothing better to help him relax.

Or so he thinks. Even when he returns back a few minutes later with his mug, sipping the oversweetened, almost saturated liquid, his stomach still does flips. He barely sits down when a thought hits him.

He sets the mug down onto the table and scurries to his room hastily. He almost trips over the threshold in his hurry to get to the bedside table. He digs around in the drawers for a moment, finally — and triumphantly — pulling out his eyepatch.

Goddess, if he’s to meet someone, he can’t let them know about his taint!

He secures it over his eye, already feeling much safer when his field of vision gets narrowed. It only takes a few minutes for him to get used to the lack of depth perception. After all, he’s been doing for quite some time now.

He comes back to the living room, returning Mr. Sparkle’s curious glance with an unsure smile. The demon purrs, nudging his side with its large snout. Time laughs quietly.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’ll be fine,” he mutters, stroking his fur once again.

He nods to himself. Yeah, there’s nothing to fear. They are… him, after all.

He retains this mindset for all of three minutes, before Esper comes back through another portal, tugging along two extra figures.

Time gulps and goes pale.

“We’re here!” Esper exclaims, letting go of the slightly shorter boys. He smiles at Time… encouragingly? is that it? and motions to the others. “Time, this is Psych…” he gestures to the left.

That Add looks strong, at least from how little Time can see over his unzipped leather jacket. His hair is swept over his right eye and looks to be blow-dried. It sticks out and looks fluffy; Time feels the urge to pat it, though he, of course, doesn’t.

“His hair is really fluffy, but he wouldn’t let me touch it,” Esper pouts quietly. Time stifles a laugh; they really are the same. He knew already, of course he did, but seeing it still baffles him a little.

“‘Course not, don’t touch me,” Psych grumbles, rolling his eyes — or, at least the visible eye.

“…and Arc,” and then Esper motions to the left.

This tracer has longer hair, held back by a headband except for his fringe, which dangles in front of his left eye. He has an air of certainty about himself, something that Time finds himself envious of.

“Psych, Arc, this is Time.”

And then Time feels their scrutinizing gazes on himself, and wants to fall through the floor.


	28. A better start this time around (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So some things are fixed even in parallel timelines,” Arc mutters, like he is jotting down a note.

There’s something thick in the air, something that makes breathing hell, something that presses down on Time’s chest heavily. Even as he holds onto the ceramic mug filled with steaming coffee, his hands feel cold and numb. Then again, most of his body is cold and numb.

Though there hadn’t been any hostility, he can still clearly see the other two are wary - of the other, of Esper, of _himself_. And it’s not unexpected, but it still hurts a bit.

Esper had left them minutes ago, after making the coffee - and it was exactly how they all liked it, he remembers Arc’s ‘how did you know?’ and Psych’s 'delicious!’ clearly. Even his is just the way he likes it, sweet and creamy and beckoning him. But now the atmosphere is stagnating, because he has no idea how to do this.

Esper never told him much about the other two, only ever broken thoughts and offhanded comments without a repeat. He has no starting line, nothing to base this off of.

No. Wait.

He does.

He thinks back to Esper. Their meeting was unplanned, yet somehow it had ended much better than any other meeting in Time’s life. He thinks back to what caused that.

The answer is simple and clear. It was the way Esper handled it. Time can remember his face, an expression of confusion melting away into understandment. More than that, what had dug its way deep into Time’s memory was Esper’s warmth. His soft, squeezing hug, the welcoming beat of his heart, his kind words.

It was something he had never thought himself capable of. After all, where would he ever use such warmth? And why?

He eyes the other Tracers, lost deep in their thoughts while sipping on the coffee. Esper channeled that warmth so easily, so fluidly, all while not pushing.

Could I do the same? Time wonders, staring absently into the swirling brown of his mug. Is it possible to make them feel that?

“Hey.” He recollects Esper’s voice and tries his best to imitate it. “I’ve some of Ciel’s cookies if you’d like.”

* * *

Psych looks up, Time’s soft voice pulling him out of his small bubble. The time traveler wannabe is smiling at them, the corners of his lips tugged up just a little, enough to make his whole face seem brighter. The corner of his visible eye is crinkled.

He knows it must feel awfully out of place for the other boy. He - and Arc too, probably, though his face is still fairly neutral - is feeling like he doesn’t belong. He knows Time is trying to help them feel better.

He appreciates it.

Plus there’s never a time he’d say no to Ciel’s cookies.

“Sure!” He hopes his voice sounds as enthusiastic as he wants it - as he feels. Because, honestly, this is exciting.

These two are him, but… Not. He looks at Arc, who finally seems to find it in him to pay attention to them. He smiles at Time as well - and Psych wonders if smiling is the normal reaction. He’d never smiled much when talking to others, at least not this softly and genuinely - and mutters a “Thanks.”

Time puts his mug down on the table and shuffles to the kitchen area. Psych and Arc watch him as he rummages through the drawers. When he comes back, it’s with a plate of cookies neatly stacked on it.

“Here.” He sets it on the table and sits down again with his coffee. Psych can see him raking his brain for things to say, for things to do, and he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth.

He worries it absentmindedly for a second, but then he leans forward and snatches a cookie off the plate. He shoves most of it into his mouth at once, his eyes closing at the chocolatey bliss.

“Where’d you get them?” he asks, when his mouth is empty again. He licks the few stray crumbs from his lips. “Lu always yells at Ciel that only she deserves them when I ask.”

Time smile widely, all self-satisfaction. “Echo,” he answers. “I made a deal with her. Ciel can never say no to her, so she asks him for them. We split them fifty-fifty.”

Psych nods enthusiastically as everything clicks in his head. “Oh, how come I didn’t think of that? That’s such a great idea!”

“You know Echo?” Arc asks, turning towards them, his eyes sparkling slightly. He looks much more present than during the whole past half hour.

Psych doesn’t miss the small pause from Time. “Yeah, she helped me a lot, with research and… stuff.” His eyes also flick somewhere down the hallway, but there’s no way Psych can guess what that is about. Yet.

“So some things are fixed even in parallel timelines,” Arc mutters, like he is jotting down a note, and from the way his Dynamo - so different from Psych’s; he’s so curious, it looks completely different, he wants to know what it’s capable of - is hovering in front of his face, he probably is.

“You mean that we all befriended Echo?” he asks. “But that’s only natural, since we’re so similar.”

* * *

Arc stops the audio recording and looks at Psych properly. Now that he’s done with his analysis of the building (he’s pretty sure it’d be called snooping, but it’s not like he’s gonna say he did it), he can focus his whole attention on his counterparts.

He wanted to know how similar everything was first. His curiosity wouldn’t let him.

He never really liked that part of himself. Oh, he loves knowledge, don’t get him wrong, he absolutely wants and needs it, but at times his hunger becomes a nuisance. He’d wanted to look the other two over first, but no, the second he realised Time’s lab and his lab looked almost identical, he needed to check it. His Dynamos revealed that aside from their actual workspace, everything really was almost the same. With some exceptions, of course. But Arc expected those.

There’s no way everything would be same, not when he and Time are so, so different.

“We aren’t really,” he muses. There were so many differences, it’s baffling they all started as the same person.

“No, I meant Echo and us, not just us,” Psych explains with a shake of his head.

Arc blinks. Did he misunderstand? He feels a blush creep up his cheeks and he looks away sharply, focusing his gaze on the table instead. He even takes a cookie just to occupy himself.

Time, though, laughs. Arc side-eyes him, his amused smile and the way he scratches under his eye patch like he’s nervous. “We’re really different, aren’t we?” the boy says, looking to the side.

Then he sighs and looks at them with something akin to guilt.

“I mean, I don’t know what Esper told you, but if you don’t want to stay here, we - I - won’t hold you.”

And Arc feels like he had missed something while he had been focusing on the footage from his Dynamos. Maybe something from Time’s and Psych’s exchange? Something in Time’s actions? Whatever it had been, he feels irritated that he has no idea why Time is saying that.

Arc remembers very vividly what Esper had promised him, how could he not, after all? _How about I get you the part of the code you’re missing? How does meeting alternate you’s sound?_

The time traveler hadn’t given him the code yet, for one, and he was truly interested in the other two, for two. He wouldn’t let this chance go. No way.

“Well what if we want to stay, then?” he asks. There’s a swell of satisfaction in his chest, for some reason, when Time looks taken aback.

“Hey, I’ve got my own tongue,” Psych mutters. He’s frowning at Arc.

“You don’t want to stay?”

“Oh yes I do, I just don’t want you speaking for the both of us.”

Time stares between the two of them as they lock in a heatless glaring contest. His lips turn up into a smile again. Is he overthinking it all?

Probably, yeah.

Maybe he should stop trying to be Esper - there’s time for that, after all. As soon as he arrives to that conclusion, he blurts the first thing that comes to mind, “Hey, do either of you have any pets?”

He’s glad he does, since it finally dispels all that uncomfortable atmosphere. And sparks a long, long conversation about cats.

* * *

Mastermind pushes the door to his lab open and steps in as he is, in nothing but his sleeping pants. The sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor must startle Esper, since he jerks, twisting to look at him from where he was tapping away on one of the holo keyboards.

“What’re you doing?” Mastermind asks, raising his hand to wipe away the crust from his eyes. He’d woken up by the joined efforts of Lusa’s ceaseless tossing and his bladder and on his way to the bathroom discovered light pouring out from the bottom of his lab’s door.

“Uhhh,” Esper straightens out, the rigidness from being startled falling off of him to be replaced by a sheepish smile and a hand scratching at his uncovered neck. “Stealing your drone’s codes.”

“You… What?” Mastermind frowns, still sluggish from his sleep and the lack of caffeine in his bloodstream.

Esper looks away, to the pristinely clear desk. “I… I promised Arc I’d give him the piece of code he’s missing for his drones in return for being with Time and Psych.” He grips the edge, fingers nervously tightening and loosening around it.

As always, Mastermind isn’t sure what is going on inside that head of his. But the mention of his younger self had woken him a little more. “Which ones?”

“Seekers.”

Masi shakes his head with an exasperated sigh. He shoos Esper away from the keyboard and sends the txt file to his Dynamo’s storage. Esper looks at the file, admiring the countless lines of code. So much work in just thirteen kilobytes… “That’s too generous considering you actually helped him. All of them. Do you know how long it took me to write that code?” Though he says that, he doesn’t mind. Not really.

“Hey, wait…” He sends over one more file before switching the computer back into sleep mode. “Give him this as well.”

Esper quirks an eyebrow as he reads the name of it on his holo-screen. “Sharp shooter II? What’s that?” He tries opening it, but the file itself is just a jumbled mess of accented letters and numbers. _Encrypted_.

“It’s a gift,” Masi says with a smile. “If he can decrypt it, he can get additional upgrade.”

“‘If’…? He’s you, of course he’s gonna decrypt it,” Esper points out, but closes down the holo-screen either way.

“That’s right. I believe in myself, don’t worry. The question is how long it’s gonna take him.”

“Did you make a custom encrypting language for your notes?” The time traveler laughs. “Wow, that’s great! Poor Arc!”

Mastermind allows a smile to graze his face as well. He knows his younger self will be able to decode it. After all, it’s him they’re talking about. But it might even help him advance. “You’re going in the morning, right?” he asks Esper, receiving a small nod in reply. “How about a coffee before that? It’s still too early, and neither of us is gonna fall asleep again.”

Esper’s eyes light up at the premise of company. “What if we baked cookies too?”

“Esper, it’s three in the morning.”

“Yeah, I know! Let’s make cookies for breakfast!”

* * *

Arc is the first one to wave up, and thus the first one in the kitchen. He taps his fingers against the counter absently while he waits for the water to boil. The kettle beeps and he picks it up, pouring the steaming water into his — Time’s — mug.

“Good morning!”

Arc flinches, spills water all over the counter. “Damn,” he hisses, twisting around.

Esper hovers in midair in front of him, upside down, with a giant grin on his face, and cackles. “You gotta be more careful, Arc,” Esper taunts. “Time likes leaving his research notes everywhere.”

Arc twists around again, a small yelp leaving him while he frantically rows the counter with his eyes. He snatches the few stray — and dry, thankfully — papers off of it. “Why are you—”

“I brought you something.” A holo-screen pops up in front of Esper’s face and he taps a few times to send the files over. Arc downloads them and looks them over. It takes approximately .004 seconds for him to perk up, spilled water forgotten already.

“This is— The code!” he exclaims. His eyes are alight with excitement. He opens the other file as well. “And this… what is this?”

“A gift from Mastermind. You’ll have to decode it first, though.” Esper reaches a hand out and ruffles Arc’s already messy hair. Strands stick out in random directions and make the tracer seem younger than he really is. “I’ll be going. Tell Time and Psych a hello from me, alright?”

“Alright,” Arc nods. He can’t wait to implement the code, to read it through, to understand it.

Before leaving, Esper leans forward. His lips press against Arc’s forehead and stun the tracer dead in his tracks. Before he can react Esper is already pulling away.

“Hey, Arc… Make sure not to overwork yourself. And make sure not to forget the others are there.”

“What’re y—”

But Esper is already gone, the only indication he was ever there the few leftover particles from his portal shimmering in the air. Arc sighs and turns to wipe away the water that he just remembered spilling.

“Good morning.”

“Morning!”

Arc flinches again, twisting his head. Time and Psych trudge into the kitchen, both obviously having just woken up. He wonders when his perception took such a hit. “Good morning.”

“What are you doing with my notes?” Time asks. “And why is the whole counter wet?”

Arc sighs. “Esper was here.”

Time hums as if that was the answer to everything. Arc wants to ask if Esper ever startled _him_ enough to spill something. “He was here? Why didn’t he visit us too? What did he want?”

“He brought me something.”

“Still, he should’ve at least said hello… Ah, when I see him again…”

“He did tell me to say hello to you two, though.”

Psych’s stomach takes that moment to grumble — and very loudly. They all burst into laughter while Psych’s cheeks color a faint shade of pink. “We should make breakfast,” he says.

Arc and Time nod.

Looks like the code will have to wait. But that’s alright. He’s got the whole day, after all.


	29. Belonging(s)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t have to do this.
> 
> He wants to, though.

It feels almost wrong to stand in Lusa’s lab.

There are still the tiny electro parts he’d been tinkering with before the whole time-space fiasco, when he’d been thinking of ways to quicken the spread of his plasma armor at startup, strewn all over the table. Blueprints, stained with coffee circles and both of their messy handwritings, litter the space under them. There’s even a mug sitting in that mess, half filled with moldy remains of what once used to be Lusa’s coffee, made by Esper, with most probability.

And it almost doesn’t seem real. Esper stands in the doorway, like he’d break the sanctity of the place if he stepped foot in it. He almost wants to open another portal, go home - to his current home, with both Lusa and Masi. He hasn’t told either of them he’d try and get his and Lusa’s stuff anyway. He can back away if he feels like it. And even if he had told them, so what. He could back out any time he wanted.

He doesn’t have to do this.

He wants to, though.

He wants to take their stuff back to Masi’s place and make it seem like an actual home. An actual home with all of their stuff. He’s not sure why, but it feels like not having their stuff there makes it not seem like a real home. Or maybe it’s just his imagination, he also isn’t sure of that. He’s not sure of a lot of things.

The first thing he grabs, surprisingly, is a jacket. It’s Lusa’s old jacket, the one with with the purple belts and fur at the collar. He knows exactly where it is hidden, underneath a pile of old stuff that Lusa hadn’t even looked through in years. The jacket smells nostalgic; he presses his nose into it and inhales the scent, feeling like he’s hugging the old version of Lusa. Younger Lusa. Tracer Lusa.

Psychic tracer.

It’s a silly notion, but it does make him feel better. He puts it on over his own jacket and it is a little bit tight on his lithe shoulders - that comes as as surprise - but he doesn’t really care. He’s taking it. Maybe not showing Lusa or Masi, but he’s definitely keeping it.

He seems to find comfort with things from the past. He almost has a stash by now; his old eye patch, Lusa’s dog collar, Masi’s hairband, a lab coat… And now the jacket as a bonus. He’ll have to hide it into a pocket dimension, though, he couldn’t let Lusa find out he’d taken it, couldn’t even begin to explain it.

With the jacket on, he proceeds with taking the actual stuff that he had come for in the first place. He scoops up the blueprints scattered around the table, stacking them into a neat pile and tucking them underneath his armpit. That’s the first (second) order of business.

The next one is when he walks over to the bedroom - Lusa’s bedroom, which had ended up as their bedroom at some point (He smiles at that. Remembers the times he’d wormed his way in with the fighter after he’d had a particularly bad night terror. There’d been a lot of those times, admittedly. At some point, he just started sleeping over every night.) - he makes his way straight to the dresser and pulls out Lusa’s favorite clothes.

He knows them by heart; which shirts the berserker liked to wear the most, which sweats were the most comfy. Soon enough, he’s got a handful of haphazardly folded clothes. Then he grabs the purple pillow from the bed, the fluffiest, most comfortable pillow ever that Masi hadn’t even dreamed of laying his head on.

Then he just stands stumped there for a moment, unsure of what else to take along. He takes Lusa’s headphones from the bedside table. He takes his favorite hair gel from the bathroom.

He’s got a handful of Lusa’s stuff. That’s when he realizes he doesn’t really have all that many things here. Especially not ones he’d really need to take along to feel comfortable. He doesn’t have many things in general.

He feels like that should be weird, but considering his obsession with time travel and aversion to staying in one place for too long before meeting Lusa, it doesn’t really surprise him. He kept what he needed on him; his dynamos and his moonstone. Well, not like he could get rid of that one if he tried, but still.

He goes through the whole lab.

Takes a few more things - Lusa’s mug, the memory drive from Lusa’s computer setup, the pair of kitty slippers he’d basically stolen from the berserker. He makes his dynamos carry the things when his hands get way too full. They float behind him in gravity balls like an impromptu parade.

The one and only thing he takes that’s obviously not Lusa’s is the plush he takes from the windowsill in the kitchen. It’s a tiny cat, with stitched together ears and patched parts here and there. He’d stolen it during one of his escapades into the past. It’s his anyway. It was his. And it is again.

He’d guard it like eye in the head, and it helped with his night terrors, almost as much as Lusa. Looking over it and reminding himself that it had been mother who had stitched the plush together, probably over and over, was strangely calming.

He tucks it close to his chest and then finally opens a portal, hopping through time and space and emerging back home, in the middle of the hallway. It’s quiet, so it’s easy to sneak into his room and shuck off the furred jacket. He leaves it hung off on a chair along with the plushie.

The rest of the stuff he carries in their respective bubbles, knocking on Lusa’s door and letting himself in when he hears no complaint. The berserker is leaned over the table, pen in hand and furiously scribbling on a giant blueprint of what looks to be a newer, upgraded version of his power gloves. When he hears the door opening, he straightens up, back popping soundly, and he turns to Esper with a ‘hm?’

“Hey Lusa,” Esper greets, offering a grin. The bubbles float in behind him and by the time Lusa takes a full note of them, his expression turns to full out confused glee.

“Where’d you get those?” he asks, as if he didn’t know the answer already.

“I promised I’d go and get out stuff, so I did. Here you go,” the time traveler laughs, chucking the pillow at his counterpart playfully. Lusa catches it with ease, hugging it close to his chest momentarily. Esper can’t suppress a smile. “I got stuff I thought would be useful or good, but if you remember anything you want from back there, there’s no problem in me going to grab it.”

Thinking about it, Esper wouldn’t really mind going back. Though he’d felt a little off at first, when he’d stepped foot into the abandoned lab again - what were the other El search party members from Lusa’s timeline thinking of their disappearance? The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until now - after a while it just felt nostalgic. Everything reminded him of the times he’d spent there with the berserker. Such nice memories. (Admittedly, and a little embarrassingly, the best ones, too.)

Lusa takes note of the stuff as Esper lets them out from their respective bubbles onto his already cluttered table, and his face lights up with a soft smile, the kind that only barely shows hints of his sharp, canine-like teeth.

“I didn’t even think you’d go back, honestly,” he admits. Looking over the blueprints Esper had brought, he seems elated, immediately snatching one up and spreading it next to the one he’d already been working on. Well, looks like the old one has notes the new one doesn’t. Esper is glad to have helped already. “But… I can’t really think of anything I miss from there. Got you here, after all, don’t I?”

Esper can feel his cheeks heat up at the unforced compliment, said so casually. God damn it, Lusa. He doesn’t have a reply.

He thinks going back might be nice, though. A nice little secret escape into memories when he feels bad. Who knows, he might even grab more stuff the next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, eso here! ive marked this fic as complete for convenience, but any future oneshots are posted separately unless i decide they absolutely belong in here! thank you for sticking around and reading this <3 hope you enjoy my future content as well!


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